


Moments in Time

by musesmistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:45:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 64,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesmistress/pseuds/musesmistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreams that are plaguing Elizabeth's nights start causing more trouble than expected, but trouble can often lead to something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The light in her face was what woke her, it was like someone was shining it directly into her eyes purposely trying to wake her from a brilliant sleep; but it wasn’t quite right. It grew, stronger and brighter for just a moment before it died out completely. The rumble and shaking of the ground below her shuddered up the metal legs of her bed to send a smaller, less intense wave through her body. She opened her eyes, it was dark, almost too dark, the lights from the city didn’t glow through her window and the moons seemed to have vanished.

Sitting up, Elizabeth glanced around the room, it was different, empty. The book she had been reading before bed was gone and as she took in the room she realised nothing was in the right place. It was back to how she had found it upon her arrival.

She got up, feeling the soft material flow around her legs and looked down to see a long silk-type dress that hung on thin straps from her shoulders. The material itself was unusual, but what caught her attention most was her stomach, protruding against it, not too much, but just enough to make it clear to everyone that she was pregnant. Before she could place a hand over it to check it was real the rumbling returned, stronger and more pronounced now that she was standing bare footed.

She walked to the closet door and opened it; it was empty, her clothing gone. Giving up on it and wanting an explanation she left the room.

Silence. The flash of light returned and another rumbling, deeper and harder and she could briefly hear the structure of the city protesting. She moved quickly and gracefully through the city, turning corners and running up stairs to reach the control room. It was empty, all the ancient control panels in place and none of the Earth equipment present. It was daunting.

“We left,” Elizabeth swung around to face John. “You were supposed to leave with us,” he said his face turning bitter, “but you refused, determined to make one last heroic attempt to save the city.”

He stepped forward and Elizabeth shivered in the sudden cold, he was angry and she could not only see it on his face, but she could feel it and comprehend it.

“You killed our baby,” he said harshly. “You killed yourself.”

“No,” she breathed and looked to her left as the flash of light glared through the control room. When she could see again John was gone, but the cold still stung at her skin. She closed her eyes willing herself to wake up.

She sat up in bed, looking around the darkened room, the faint light from the facility streaming in through the windows. She blinked several times in the fresh light, her dreams were never relaxing when John wasn’t in the bed with her, his comforting arms always felt safe and seemed to drain all the stress of the day out of her. But he was working late and she had no idea what time he would return. Her brow creased as she considered how crazy it was to think of him so easily in her bed when there was nothing between them.

She pushed the sheets off and placed her bare feet on the cold floor before moving to the window, her long white night dress flowed around her ankles as she moved. She looked down on the facility, small in comparison to the city of Atlantis and wondered when she’d arrived here, wherever here was. She could see the outline of a structure, large and looming in the distance. Its short towers glowing and flickers of light emitting from areas. The door behind her opened and she turned just slightly to watch John enter the room before she looked back out the window.

“Didn’t expect you to be awake,” he said dropping his things on the desk and kicking off his boots. “You should be resting, you know we won’t get our baby if you stress too much over the construction.” He moved over to stand behind her as she considered his words. His hands came to rest on her hips and his chin on her shoulder. “That’s why I was doing the late night stressful part,” he offered, before kissing her neck.

“We can’t make a baby if you’re not here at the same time as me,” she said deciding this was another of her dreams where they were already married. She had fun playing along and usually ended up in something more erotic than she thought possible.

“What makes you think I won’t wake you up?” he asked, his hands moving around to her stomach, massaging lightly as his fingers moved downwards.

“You just said I needed to rest,” she said coyly.

“I could,” he started gathering up the dress in his hands, “always come back here with you at the end of your day, tire you out and then go back to work.”

She stopped him with one hand over his, now on the bared skin of her belly and the other against his cheek. Turning slightly she kissed him before pressing herself back against his hips.

“You and I both know that you tire quicker than I do.”

“I’ll think of something,” he said grinning against the skin of her neck before he nipped at it. “But while you’re awake,” he said with no intention of finishing his sentence. Instead, one of his hands slipped down from her stomach and she barely had a moment to contemplate his thinking before talented fingers vanished into the folds of her sex.

Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath and let her head drop back onto his shoulder. She had never expected when he started courting her that he would be able to bring such a strong reaction about at moments like this. She remembered the day he’d smiled smugly at her and teased her for being too shy to run their civilisation. She was just a child then, a thirteen year old girl looking on at a pesky seventeen year old boy who was one of about twenty being considered for her husband. She had begged her parents not to consider him. Though she had no idea where these memories came from.

Now here they were almost fifteen years later, married and trying for their first child and she would never be able to lie in bed with him teasing her body without remembering their first time together. He was always gentle, always paid attention to her body and what she needed. He would tease her perfectly, knowing how to manipulate her body into something pliant and willing.

His finger brushed against her clit as the other hand shifted up her stomach towards her breasts. She squirmed slightly, knowing the touch of his fingers or wet tongue on her nipple would make her moan, they were always so sensitive to his touch – much the same of the rest of her body was to his presence. She’d tried hard in the beginning, when she’d finally decided he was extremely sexy, in a rough, scruffy kinda-way, to push away the feelings, sitting in meetings and dinners with him close by and wishing everyone else would leave so she could just rip his clothes off.

She’d buzzed on her wedding day, spending the morning trembling with excitement and blushing with passion at the thought of what would happen that night. Everyone had put it down to nerves, but she hadn’t felt a single touch of fear for her life, just the need to get it over with.

“I haven’t told you lately,” he said drawing her from her memories, “how much I love you.” She hadn’t noticed his hands moving away from her skin as he spoke, too wrapped up in his words to pay attention to anything else.

“I don’t always need to hear it,” she told him, feeling the material tug at her arms and she raised them so he could remove the dress. “You show me at least once a day.”

“I still like telling you,” he said and she could feel the coy smile spread against her shoulder. “Especially when it’s followed by you being completely naked.”

“You don’t need to say it to get me naked,” she said with a groan. Her hands quickly planted on the wall beside the window as John rocked his hips against her backside. He was hard, pressing strongly against the crevice of her buttocks and he swallowed hard at the sensation.

“Don’t move,” he breathed and she felt him step back from her for a moment. The sound of his clothes dropping to the ground around them gave her only a moment to adjust her stance before his naked body pressed against her, hands back on her stomach with his front following the curves of her back. His lips pressed in at her neck and he rubbed himself against her for a moment. “You’re gonna be irresistible. Belly perfectly rounded with my baby boy.”

He pulled back from her slightly, running his hands down her back, following the curves of her waist with his fingers and drawing back up her spine to make her shiver. He drew her hair back over her shoulder, straightening the slightly curled locks down her back to a point a few centimetres above her backside before releasing it and running his hands back up her sides and around to cup her breasts.

“You’re a terrible tease,” she breathed, shuddering as he flicked a finger over her nipples.

“Funny,” he said rocking against her again. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Elizabeth hummed in amusement as he straightened her body before pulling away. She turned to look at him and found him watching her with a loving smile. He took a step forward and she watched him closely as he leaned in and kissed her. She loved the feel of his kisses, just firm enough to feel the pressure, but always so tender and loving like he was pouring the whole of his soul into them. If the real John Sheppard kissed like her dream version she’d never let him out of her room.

His hand drifted down her arms to take her hands and he pulled back, stepping deliberately to the bed and drawing her with him. She shuddered at the thought of what would come, the feel of him close, the touch of his skin against hers as he slowly made love to her.

~~ **~~

John looked at his watch again, she was never late. He paced back across the doorway to the conference room his head filled with the noise of Rodney’s fingers drumming impatiently on the desk and Ronon’s flick as he twirled a knife around one finger. The noises seemed to dig at his impatience and worry, Elizabeth was never late, nine times out of ten she was there before any of them and chances were she had been working for at least an hour before that.

He glanced at his watch again, now half an hour later than normal his mind started to pick at the possibilities. She’d forgotten, she’d been side tracked or she was in the infirmary for something or other. Or she hadn’t gotten up yet.

“I’m gonna go find her,” he said at last. “Don’t go too far, we’ll just run this mission an hour late, no big deal.”

He moved off before Rodney could voice his annoyance with the wasted time. He took the stairs down from the control room quickly and activated his radio as he turned into the corridor.

“Elizabeth,” he said drawing her name out playfully. “You’re missing a really exciting meeting; Ronon’s almost cut all of Rodney’s hair off from boredom.” He waited for a reply but nothing came, just silence. “Elizabeth,” he said again and waited, but again only silence.

He stepped into the transporter and emerged a moment later in her corridor. He switched off his radio, activated her door chime and waited. Silence followed and John looked around him at the empty corridor as he waited. After a minute he turned back to the door and rang the chime again. Still no answer came and he started to get worried that something had happened to her.

“Please don’t be changing,” he said to himself before he opened the door and stepped in.

The darkened room was almost daunting and he stepped away from the door, letting it close behind him, as he moved towards the bedroom. A noise caught his attention and he halted in the doorway. Inside, he could see the outline of the bed and worst of all, the person laying in it. He watched, stunned in his place as she shivered and let out a low pleasurable groan. The covers had been kicked off the end of the bed and he ran his eyes up her smooth legs as she shifted them further apart and her short covered hips bucked just slightly. Her stomach was bared, the t-shirt drawn up by one roaming hand that slid slowly across her own skin and up towards her breasts.

John swallowed hard and silently wished he’d walked in on her getting dressed. He squeezed his eyes closed and swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat before he moved towards the bed. He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering down her body and taking in the sweat that covered her, the damp of her clothes as he listened almost intently to the noises she was making. Whatever dream she was having, he would likely be sharing for the next few weeks, along with the erection that wouldn’t go away.

“Elizabeth,” he tried, but the lump in his throat made it sound breathy and wanton. Elizabeth groaned loudly and for a second he considered that her erotic dream had just ended. He cleared his throat loudly and tried again. “Elizabeth,” he said firmly and received a small groan of pleasure before her breath caught in her chest and she sat bolt upright in bed. “Elizabeth,” he tried. She turned to him with a start and he saw the acknowledgement on her face before it dawned on her what he’d seen.

“Oh my god,” she breathed and he watched the blush rush to her cheeks as she quickly adjusted her night clothes. Her hand came up to her face, concealing her shame from him for a moment before she composed herself and got up. She stood with her back to him for a moment and he couldn’t resist taking in the dampness of her shorts clinging to her backside perfectly. “What,” she paused to clear her throat, “what time is it?”

“Oh-eight forty-five,” he said checking his watch. When he looked back at her she was breathing deeply. “Elizabeth? You alright?”

“Fine,” she said shortly, “I’ll be there in about half an hour,” she said and vanished into the bathroom.

~~**~~

Elizabeth had needed to shower, a cold one at that. She couldn’t believe how real the dream had felt. Even now sitting in the conference room with John and his team she could feel his touch on her body and the feel of him inside her. She had entered the conference room with her eyes down and hadn’t apologised for her tardiness, there had been no excuse, never before had she slept so long and never for an erotic dream.

During the meeting she looked at everyone except John, he’d seen too much and she had no idea if she’d gone that extra step into horror and moaned his name. She couldn’t remember saying it after he’d led her to the bed, but that didn’t mean anything. She thought idly that at least for most of the day John would be off-world and therefore unable to embarrass her more. Now all she had to do was get him out of Atlantis as soon as possible.

“Alright,” she said keeping her eyes fixed on her palm computer. “Gather your gear and be back in the gate room in an hour.” She grabbed her cup and quickly left the room, heading for her office in the hopes of shutting herself away for the day.

“Elizabeth,” John said stepping into the office. She closed her eyes for a moment and willed him to leave before she looked up. She had no such luck and for the first time that morning met his eyes.

“What can I do for you?” She asked quickly looking away.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said nervously. “I didn't mean to embarrass you; you see....” he stammered slightly and paused to lick his lips. “You were late and I tried hailing you and even rang the doorbell. I'm sorry, but...” he stopped again, running his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, John,” she offered, not really knowing if it was okay, but it was said now.

“We all have our nightmares and dreams, at least yours seemed fun,” he said with a smirk. “I’ll go get ready,” he added and turned, walking quickly from the office.

~~**~~

“I don’t like it,” the small voice made her eyes snap open. Elizabeth looked around the control room for a moment before she turned slowly to see the little girl standing at the top of the stairs just inside the control room. “When will it stop mommy?”

She looked down at the child, no more than three, her long black hair made into ringlets with spikes of unruliness every so often. Her green eyes were charming and soft and very much those of her commanding officer.

This was beyond unreal, she thought as another flash of white light penetrated the glass and seemed to seep through the metal walls. When she opened her eyes again the three year old was gone, she looked around to her right searching for a small form thinking she had curled up afraid by one of the consoles. A small hand took her left one and she turned to the seven year old, the long black curls and green eyes still evident.

“I want to show you something,” she said sounding almost like Elizabeth’s mother when she was excited on Christmas day. The girl tugged at her, pulling her away from the control room as the shuddering floors rumbled and the walls creaked.

Back through the corridors, Elizabeth followed her, stairs, transporters, stairs and all hallways to the door, she recognised this door. It would open to John’s room, ‘small and cosy’ she remembered him saying once. Without considering it, she reached out and opened it and as the door slid open she felt the little fingers release her hand.

The dark room gave away nothing; she could make out the outline of his desk, his bed and the shift of something amongst the sheets. It was a moment more before she realised there were things on the desk and bedside unit and a poster hanging from the wall overhead. She turned slightly and took in the barely lit shape of his guitar and his storage box beside it the top of which was also littered with items she couldn’t identify.

“Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth turned back to John’s bed and the sudden amount of light made her blink and feel suddenly weak and sleepy. John was sitting up in his bed, his eyes trained on her, the sheet he’d been wrapped in dropped to his waist to uncover the t-shirt he slept in.

It was daylight, early morning and she couldn’t remember walking here, couldn’t figure out why she was standing in his room feeling as though she’d run the marathon. For no reason she could determine she looked down, her pyjamas still on and her feet bare on the cold floor.

“I...” she didn’t know, she didn’t know anything, she could barely work out where she was let alone why she was there. Her eyes struggled, battling with her sluggish mind as if she’d been up for too long and all it would take was for her to lie down and she’d be asleep or unconscious.

She must have swayed or something because John moved quickly. He was out of bed and she caught a brief glimpse of his boxer shorts before his arm was around her and she could no longer fight the sleep off. She tilted into his arms, feeling like a rag doll as her head came to rest on his shoulder and he eased her down onto the bed.

“Carson.” She pried her eyes open one more time as John activated his radio. “You better get to my room,” he added just as the darkness swallowed her.

~~**~~

Carson stepped into the room and creased his brow. Elizabeth was lying in her night clothes on John’s bed, John himself had a look of fear on his face, sleep in his eyes and it didn’t escape his notice that he was only in a t-shirt and boxers.

“Colonel?”

“She walked in, about 5 minutes ago, woke me up. She seemed perfectly awake,” he said as Carson moved to Elizabeth’s side to check on her.

“But she wasn’t?”

“No, she was completely out of it, couldn’t explain a thing and when she realised where she was, she looked really confused; then just passed out.”

“Pulse is normal, pupils are responding normally. If you don’t object, perhaps we should just let her sleep it off.”

“You think she’s just tired?”

“Ay, have you seen how many hours she puts in? It wouldn’t shock me to know she was sleepwalking because of it,” he let out a sigh, looking down at Elizabeth’s resting form on John’s bed. It took him a moment before he looked at John and considered adding what had been troubling him about Elizabeth for weeks.

“Whatever it is, just say it.”

“I’m not sure I can,” he said considering that it was stupid to keep information from him regarding Elizabeth’s health. He was of course the only person who could and should know the details.

“I need to know if there’s going to be a problem, Carson.”

“Her last medical didn’t fill me with confidence, Colonel; she has lost a lot of weight in the last few months.”

Carson watched as John’s eyes turned to her, he knew the man had a strong sense of protection for their leader. He had originally seen it as a brother and sister kind of relationship, but somehow, that didn’t fit with the look in his eyes. It was the look of someone trying to work out what it was he was feeling, as if there was something new in his emotions.

“Did you talk to her about it?”

“Ay, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference.”

John’s brow creased, he was considering something, wondering about something. Perhaps a way or wording what came next.

“I’ll talk to her when she wakes,” he said without looking up. It took Carson a moment to respond, to take in the subtle hint to leave now and he’d be contacted later.

“If, er,” he paused thinking carefully over his words so he didn’t freak the man out. “If she doesn’t wake up in a few hours, give me a call.”

“I will.”

Carson turned, hesitated at the door and glanced back over his shoulder. John had dropped his head to his hands and his tense posture made it impossible not to notice he was afraid of something. Confused, Carson made a mental note to talk to Kate Heightmeyer about it later and left the room.

~~**~~

She half expected her room, like she’d previously woken up to, or even the infirmary as the last thing she could remember was John’s confused face. Nothing made sense anymore; she’d gone to bed last night as normal, close to the middle of the night on this planet. But when she’d woken up she had been in John’s room. No, she had been in her room and made her way to John’s room. Hadn’t she?

The last thing she expected was to open her eyes and see the Stargate. She turned her head and took in the gate room; she was lying on her back at the bottom of the stairs to the control room. A small pain stabbed at her left eye, indicating the makings of a headache.

She sat up slowly, expecting to see a flash of light and feel the floor underneath her shake. But she couldn’t remember what brought that expectation to light. A clank down one of the corridors caught her attention and made her heart thud in her chest. She got to her feet and as she made her way slowly towards the hallway a strange smell wafted up her nose. A new smell; like the freshly heated metal that came with the making of a horse shoe.

Curious, Elizabeth moved into the hall and turned at the first corridor. Three men worked the area, the walls standing proud before one of them as he decorated the windows with the translucent paint. The other two concentrating on the ceiling, a device in their hand that flexed the metal, shaped it to their whim. They were building Atlantis.

She took a step towards them, to get a better look at the tools they were using and her foot knocked against their toolbox. All three heads turned to look at her and she froze, afraid they would arrest her for being in the city before it was completed.

“Lady Bethan?” one of the men asked slightly confused. Elizabeth gave a confused look back; she didn’t understand what was happening, where she was or how these men knew her.

“I,” she didn’t know, once again the feeling of complete confusion took over. “I just thought I’d see how it was going,” she said hoping she didn’t sound too out of place.

“It’s going very well, my lady,” the one painting the wall said with a slight bow. “We are almost finished here in the main city, we will move over to the beta city shortly to help the team there complete their work.”

“As soon as we are gone you can call Avalon and start moving people in, my lady.”

Elizabeth gave a careful nod and turned back to the control room. She took the stairs naturally hoping they weren’t now debating the best way to capture her and lock her in a cell. She took a seat at one of the consoles and studied them, they looked completely different, the dialling symbols were highlighted, each dot to make each symbol a pleasant shade of blue to the eyes. The edges of the golden pedestals were etched with silver and red. They were beautiful and pleasant to look at instead of the simple machines they saw now.

A baby’s cry drew her attention from the panels in front of her and she looked into her office over the short walkway. John was sitting in her chair, his eyes fixed on the small baby in his arms and he was smiling. She was out of place here; she knew that, but John and a baby - that was a whole new state of unusual.

“She’s just as beautiful as you are, Bethan,” he said as she stepped into the office. “She’s going to have your looks when she’s older, the boys don’t stand a chance.”

“What’s going on?” she asked watching as he rocked the infant. He seemed not to hear the question, it took him some time to look up again and he didn’t have an answer for her, just a question that was completely unrelated.

“What are we going to call her?”

She opened her mouth, a name almost there and ready to answer but her confusion took over again and the sound of voices behind her made her turn back to the control room.

“Elizabeth?” Teyla was standing almost directly in front of her, her brow creased and a hand outstretched as if ready to catch her if she fell. Quickly she scanned the room, taking in the confused and slightly amused looks of everyone on duty, her expedition team giving a mix of expressions.

She took a step backwards and collided with a firm chest, strong hands caught her shoulders. A sudden wave of nausea washed over her and made her shudder, she didn’t know this place anymore, these people were her friends, her co-workers yet at the same time, they were strangers to her. The feeling added to her sudden need to vomit and she swayed on the spot supported only by Ronon who stood behind her.

“Perhaps we should call Carson.”

She tried to take step, wanted to escape from the eyes fixed on her, familiar and new at the same time. Turning she spotted a stairwell and moved towards it, she barely reached the first step when the nausea increased and a wave of dizziness piled on top. She couldn’t stop herself from vomiting and was only slightly thankful for the set of hands that caught her arms and hoisted her from her feet before once more she was plunged into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

John’s heart was beating faster than ever; he couldn’t believe he had done it. He was supposed to be watching over her not running down the corridor trying to find her. After Carson had left, he watched her sleep for a moment before turning on his laptop to write a report, which he hadn’t done. Instead he’d started playing solitaire.

Next thing he knew, he was waking up, head on the desk and turned to find his bed empty. Thinking she’d rested enough and felt embarrassed for being in his room, John walked the distance to hers only to find it just as empty. After swearing loudly, causing one woman to jump as she stepped out of her room down the corridor, he turned and started walking. He had no idea where she was or even if she was awake or trapped in another sleep walking session.

He should have picked up his book, sat there reading, he thought as he sped around a corner and almost knocked someone over. Now was not the best time to punish himself, he could let Elizabeth do that when she found he let her wander the city in her pyjamas.

 _“Medical team to the control room.”_

“Crap!” John practically shouted and took off at a run, he was close to the control room; he’d probably beat the medical team there. He took the stairs up to the room two at a time and turned into the room, people were standing staring in his direction, eyes flicked up to meet his.

“Colonel,” Teyla said catching his attention, she was standing to his right and just beyond her Ronon was sitting on the stairs to the jumper bay with Elizabeth cradled across his lap. She was still dressed in her night clothes, although her pants had slipped a little over her hip and Ronon was gratefully holding her top down to cover the bared patch.

“What happened?” he demanded turning to Teyla, he caught her eyes flicking over to the control room staff before she turned back to him.

“I was waiting for my meeting with her when she arrived dressed like this,” Teyla explained indicating the pale blue outfit. “When I asked if everything was alright, she did not answer.”

“It was like she was here, but not here at the same time,” Ronon said, “looked completely lost when she finally realised where she was.”

The clutter of a gurney drew his attention and he turned to see Carson round the corner at the top of the stairs. He approached looking annoyed and John knew instantly that his anger was at him for letting her walk up here. He looked down as he approached and it was then that John realised Elizabeth had been ill.

“Colonel,” Carson greeted, “I was under the impression she was sleeping.”

“So was I,” he said, “and apparently so was everyone else.”

The look he got would have made him laugh if the situation weren’t so desperate. He shifted uncomfortably, he knew this was partly his fault and he’d make up for it. Teyla and Ronon could handle things up here while he took care of Elizabeth, he was starting to get the impression this was not a simple case of sleepwalking.

“Huh,” Carson said and John turned to look at him, now standing on the stairs next to Ronon. John resisted the urge to say the obvious ‘what?’ and just waited. “Her pupils are still responsive and pulse steady, but her temperature has risen. I think it’s time to take a better look at our wondrous leader.”

John could only nod and watch as Ronon, with help from Teyla and Carson, got up from the stairs and carried the unconscious woman through the control room and down the stairs. It was a moment more before he dragged his hand down over his face and followed them.

~~**~~

It was a few hours later when Rodney stepped in, he spoke but John didn’t hear it, he was intently watching Elizabeth. He had a tight hold of her hand and he could feel the heat of her body though her skin and the dampness of her palm. There was something about watching her though. Carson had confirmed that she was just in a deep sleep, not quite a coma but not a normal dream state. Her eyes moved under her lids, but not as if she was dreaming, it was more like she was looking around in a room, taking in her surroundings.

“Sheppard,” McKay said attempting to gain his attention.

John purposely ignored him, his fingers rubbing on the back of Elizabeth’s hand. Her fingers twitched slightly and John focused on her eyes, hoping they would open for him. So far she’d only been awake twice and both times she looked completely lost, whatever was happening to her, chances were she didn’t remember it when she was awake. That worried him more than anything, she’d been exhausted from what he guessed was a waking dream – or nightmare – so whatever was going on when she was like this, could kill her.

She moved again, her arms pushing back as though to sit up in bed, the restraints across her chest tightened and she struggled for just a moment against them before resting back on the bed.

“What was that?” Rodney asked.

“I think she wanted to get up,” John replied. “She’s already walked her way into my room and the control room while in this state. Though both times her eyes were open.”

As if on cue or responding to John’s statement, Elizabeth’s eyes opened. John was on his feet so fast his head spun from the rush, he pushed passed it and lingered over the city leader hoping she was actually awake.

“Elizabeth?” he asked softly.

“That’s freaky.”

John turned to glare at Rodney. “Get Carson,” he said sourly, staring Rodney down until the man turned to leave.

~~**~~

A sense of dread lingered over her, like a bright light highlighting her presence in the room. The eyes of every man and woman standing, waiting, flickered nervously to her and back between them. She wasn’t sure what they were worried about though, was it her they were worried for? Or were they afraid of her and worried for their own lives? Movement in the observation room above them caught her attention and she looked up to see John standing looking down at them, she had to fight the fear for a moment to focus on him properly. Something was different, his hair wasn’t quite so wild and his features seemed younger and smoother than she remembered them. Though his face was strained she watched as he fought an internal battle for a moment and turned away from her.

It stung, she didn’t know why it did, but it stung as though she’d disappointed him without reason. She didn’t know what she’d done either, why she was sitting in a room with six other people and why she had a lingering dread that something horrible was coming. She let her eyes wander back to the people in the room; they were still uncomfortable though they now seemed very aware that John was watching them. She looked back at John and caught the flicker of horror in his eyes before he moved to the side and activated the speaker.

He flicked it off again a second later and she let her eyes drop down to her lap, her fingers twisted for a moment before she daringly brought them to her stomach. The smooth material flattened under her touch as she drew a delicate line over the growing baby. She hadn’t even realised it was there, distracted by the people in isolation with her and with John’s odd behaviour. If these people were under her command, or even his, then he should be scolding them for whatever it was they’d done wrong. He should be scolding her for her carelessness. She heard the speaker flick on again and off before he finally gave in and flicked it back on.

“What happened?” he asked. Elizabeth didn’t move, she didn’t know what to say, she had no memory of what had happened, she couldn’t even explain when exactly she’d gotten pregnant and why this room looked nothing like the isolation rooms on Atlantis.

“The negotiations went fine, sir,” one of the women said, “until they asked for medical help against some illness.”

“What illness?”

“Mathas insisted on showing us,” one of the men offered. “We asked Bethan to wait in the hall, but...” he swallowed and Elizabeth chanced a glance at him. “It wasn’t until we were in the room that we found out it was a plague, it took them by surprise, killed within two days and they had no defence against it.”

Silence fell for a moment more and Elizabeth looked up at John, now pacing across the observation room. He paused and scrub of a hand down his face and she felt the familiarity of it pang at her heart. She knew him too well, knew that action meant worry, if not downright fear of what was going to happen next.

“He didn’t seem to understand that he’d just exposed us to the same thing,” someone said. “He couldn’t get that we were leaving because our queen was now in danger.”

“He was an idiot,” the first woman said.

“How badly were you exposed?”

“We weren’t in the room for long, Marik asked how the illness was spreading and as soon as the answer was out of the guy’s mouth we were out of the room.”

The baby moved inside her and the next part of the conversation was drowned out, she focused on the feeling. It was weird, feeling something alive and fidgeting in her stomach. But that was only half of her focus, she had to take in the fact that it was still alive, exposed to a plague and still alive. For how long she didn’t know, but these people were the ancients, they’d find a cure.

She looked up as the door opened and found herself watching a man who reminded her of a much younger version of her grandfather. He paused a few paces into the room and looked across it to the others gathered there. Elizabeth watched out of the corner of her eye as John almost sprinted from the observation room.

“You’re fine, no signs of the virus in your systems, you can go report to your weapons’ master,” he said. A sigh of relief ran through the crowd and they began to move out, pausing to let John into the room. He was at her side in a heartbeat, one hand in hers and the other on the raise of her belly.

“What about Bethan?” John asked.

“Well,” the doctor said with a sigh. “There’s good news, and there’s bad news.” He stopped and looked back towards the door, two of the guards had stopped there, waiting and the doctor turned back to John. John nodded. “There’s no sign of the virus in _your_ blood.” Elizabeth watched as he swallowed nervously. “But there is a trace of it in the amniotic fluid.”

Her heart sank quickly as though she had no control over the emotion that was coursing through her. She tried to fight it, but knew she was losing when she felt the first tear slip down her cheek. The life she could feel moving in her stomach, under John’s hand was going to die.

“No,” she breathed, unable to stop the flood of tears.

“It’s just the fluids right?” John said and she could hear the pain in his voice. “Not the baby.”

“It’s around the baby, it can easily be absorbed at any time between now and the day it’s born.”

Elizabeth let out a sob and drew her hand back from John’s grasp. He didn’t let her pull completely away, his hands moving to her shoulders and she barely had a second to pull in a laboured breath before he’d pulled her against him. The emotions washed over her like a cool shower, he felt comfortable and safe as though he could protect the child from the plague that was attacking it. Yet at the same time, she knew he couldn’t and that the chances were their baby would die.

“Josiah,” the doctor said. “I can’t tell you if the baby will live or die, all I can do is monitor it closely and hope that the very small amount of virus doesn’t expand and engulf it. Take her home,” the doctor added, “get some rest and we’ll start repeating the test every day until we know what’s going on.”

The doctor turned away, she heard his footsteps on the metal floor and the hushed ushering of the other people out of room. The slide of the door closing left her alone in the room with John and for a moment she was confused by the difference in his name before what happened sunk deep into her soul and she let out a scream of emotional pain.

~~**~~

Elizabeth let out a scream, a high pitched pain ridden scream that jerked John and Ronon from their conversation and had Carson running into the room at full speed with two nurses close on his tail. His heart thumping in his chest John moved down one side of the bed, her eyes were still wide open and she stared up at seemingly nothing. Tears slipped down the sides of her face before she blinked and gasped and her eyes flicked to his face.

“Elizabeth?” he asked cautiously wondering if she was now awake or still in the recesses of her dreams.

“Where am I?” she asked, her eyes fixed on him and he could see the fear on her face. She muttered something else that John couldn’t quite understand but he managed to pick out the word baby.

“Elizabeth, it’s okay, you’re in the infirmary.”

Elizabeth shifted, trying to get up and for a moment he thought she wanted to hug him, or at the very least touch him. She gasped at the restraints and turned to him with fresh tears in her eyes. John stole a glance at Carson who was quickly checking her stats and swallowed. She’d turned her head away by the time he looked back and he could see her fighting the overwhelming emotions. John turned to Ronon and gave him a nod to indicate he should leave; he did the same with the two nurses before turning to Carson.

“Can we undo the straps?”

“While she’s awake,” Carson said. “If she falls asleep again, we can’t risk her walking off a pier.”

John nodded before helping Carson undo the straps across her body and over her wrists. She didn’t move when he pushed the last strap away and for a moment he thought she’d dropped back into one of her dreams. Carson moved away from the bed to pick up his computer and make some notes and it was then that Elizabeth’s hand slid up onto her stomach. John reached behind him and pulled a chair over to sit down next to her, as he moved so did Elizabeth, turning onto her side to face him.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Tired,” she said. “Feel like I’ve spent the last three weeks wide awake and its catching up to me.”

“Ironic, as you’ve been asleep almost constantly for the last 2 days, you overslept a meeting...” he trailed off remembering what happened when he went to wake her, then swallowed. “Sleep walking; you were in the control room last. Threw up on Rodney.”

Elizabeth raised her head with a slight look of horror on her face. John held his straight face as long as he could before the smirk overtook. She dropped back on the bed with a huff and closed her eyes. John regretted the joke the second a tear dropped onto her pillow.

“Elizabeth, do you remember walking to the control room?”

“I woke up in the gate room,” she breathed, not opening her eyes. “There was no one there; the place was empty except for three men working on the decoration in one of the corridors. They called me....” She laughed and John quirked a brow. “I think I’m going crazy,” she said and laughed harder. John watched her, she could be losing it, could be going completely batty, but somehow he didn’t think that was the case, something was going on that effected her dream state and it was taking its toll on her when she was awake.

“What did they call you?” he asked a little too curious about the end of her sentence.

“Lady Bethan,” she said with a sigh. “When I got back to the control room, you were there, in my office with...” she paused again and John’s brows rose. “With a baby in your arms.”

John just nodded; he’d heard weirder dreams, though none of them included him holding a baby. He wanted kids, he’d wanted them for a long time, having a baby with Elizabeth seemed more like his kind of dream, not hers. Then again, the making of said baby was... his brain trailed the thought off and replaced it with images of Elizabeth on her back in bed, shorts and t-shirt clinging to her sweaty body as she writhed around. Had she been dreaming about him?

“What’s wrong with me?”

John looked over at Carson, he’d stopped working at some point in the conversation and watched them; the doctor shook his head at John.

“We don’t know yet,” John said cautiously. “Carson’s probably gonna do more tests, he’ll figure it out.” Out the corner of his eye he saw Carson stiffen then let out a sigh. “He must be the best, right, you hired him.” Elizabeth smiled. “Get some rest, Elizabeth, I’ll come back and check on you later.”

~~**~~

She could feel the restraints on her wrists as she fought through the haze of sleep. She didn’t want to let her eyes close. The pain of the last dream was still heavy in her heart and it frightened her that the next dream would give her the physical pain of losing a baby. Her eyes closed and she forced them open again and found Carson lingering over her.

“Don’t fight it, love,” he said gently.

“I don’t want the dreams,” she said. “I can’t...” she trailed off, not really sure what she couldn’t do.

“You need the rest; you don’t know the dreams are going to come again.”

She couldn’t respond. Her eyelids were heavy and her brain fogged with the need to sleep. Her eyes closed again and she forced them open trying to fix on Carson’s face, but he was gone. A strange man stood staring at her, his hands twisting nervously and when she raised her head feeling strangely awake she realised she was in her office.

“Yes?” she said.

“Lady Bethan,” he said sounding as though he could scream and run at any second. “Doctor Vilma sent me,” he swallowed and licked his lips. “Jenna has been taken to the infirmary, she’s fallen ill.”

For a moment confusion set in. Who was Jenna? The name was familiar in her head and the thought of her being ill was pushing her heart to thud madly in her chest. It was for only a moment though, and then she was up out of her chair as though being controlled by someone else, running down the corridors towards the infirmary. She passed people so fast the blurs of colour mixed in with the normal cream of the ancient attire didn’t register.

She rounded the corner and headed for the isolation room only to be stopped by the guard outside. They struggled with her and she fought against them, her daughter was on the other side of the closed door dying and there was no way she was going to wait out here.

~~**~~

Carson’s grip on Elizabeth hadn’t been nearly enough to keep her in place and he was relieved when Ronon appeared to help him. He’d forgotten about the straps and the need to keep her pinned to the bed when she’d fallen asleep and watched in horror as she’d climbed from the bed and wandered out of the room. He’d followed, curiously then things had changed quicker than he thought possible. She’d turned and ran back towards the isolation rooms, but instead of heading for her own room, she’d gone for another – one filled with experiments and mixed chemicals that he’d doubled as lab.

“No,” she screamed, managing to push him against a wall with a force he wasn’t quite sure Elizabeth actually possessed. “Jenna!”

~~**~~

“John,” Teyla called jogging to catch up to him. John paused to give her a chance and smiled tiredly at her. “I heard Elizabeth woke up.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure the whole infirmary heard her scream.” It has scared the life out of him. He’s spent the whole conversation wanting to ask her what made her scream, but found he couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. He turned the corner towards Rodney’s lab, not minding that Teyla walked with him as though she knew his purpose. “Rodney,” he called stepping into the room and looking around, Rodney wasn’t there, but Radek looked up from his computer.

“There’s a problem with one of the computers in the control room, he’s gone to fix it. Apparently I’m not capable enough,” Radek said sourly.

“Well I hope you’re capable of looking something up for me.”

“I think I can handle that,” Radek said sarcastically. “What’s the search?”

“Any reference to a woman called Bethan,” he said sitting down behind Rodney’s abandoned machine, Teyla sitting opposite him. “Going back to the building of the city.” Eyebrows on both persons rose, John would have found it amusing at any other time, but with Elizabeth’s health in question it was just an annoying pause before the search began. Thankfully Radek started typing at his keyboard.

“There are quite a few references to her,” he said scanning down the list on his computer. “Mostly as the ‘Lady of Atlantis’.”

 _”Colonel Sheppard to the isolation rooms.”_

“Find out who she was, what happened to her, I wanna know everything,” he said moving out of the room and starting to jog down the corridor as he called back to the scientist.

~~**~~

It was a strange feeling, the dread, the fear and the uncontrollable sensation that the world was about to come to an abrupt halt. It scared her more than the thought of losing a daughter, which at the moment was confusing her. She didn’t have children, yet here she was on her knees outside the isolation room with her forehead against the door. Her daughter, Jenna, on the other side and in god knew what condition but every time she tried to gain access, the guards standing behind her would prevent it. She couldn’t stop the tears or the pains in her stomach which she had no doubt came from fear and made her feel as though she could throw up at any second. The world around her seemed unusually still and quiet, though she could hear people talking and their feet on the ground. It wandered through her brain as though there were several walls between the persons and her ear drums. Hands on her shoulders slammed her back to reality and she struggled against them, thinking they belonged to the guards. She refused to move, she refused to leave her only daughter.

“Bethan,” his voice was soft and familiar, comforting and demanding at the same time and his hands refused to let her win the battle. He pulled her against his chest, wrapping strong arms around her to hold her close. Still it took a few minutes of pain and anger rushing through her for being forced to move, before she settled against her husband and cried.

“It’s the plague,” she breathed after several breathless moments. “From Lataon, she has the plague.”

~~**~~

This was not what John had intended to do when he’d grabbed Elizabeth’s shoulders. The idea had been to pull her away from the door enough to let Ronon help him lift her from the ground and carry her back to the iso room. But he’d caught sight of her face as she started to struggle against him and his resolve had melted and he turned it into a comforting hug instead.

“What the hell’s going on?” John asked looking between Ronon and Carson.

“Not a clue, she just started to shout for someone called Jenna.” Ronon leaned against the wall and watched as Elizabeth’s arms crept around John’s body.

“We need to get her back into the isolation room,” Carson offered. “I’m going to find out what’s taking so long on her blood tests and get some more examinations sorted.”

“Yeah, before Elizabeth goes crazy or...”

“This isn’t helping her health, Colonel. She’s not awake long enough to eat or drink and she’s certainty not getting enough rest this way.”

John sighed and looked back down at Elizabeth, her face was buried in his chest and her arms gripped him tightly. He could feel her tears seeping through his shirt and the shudder of her body in his arms. It was painful to watch and it would be even more painful when she woke up and he could see the strain in her face, mixed with the fear and hurt of whatever was going on in her dreams.

“Help me up,” he said to Ronon, noting that Carson had vanished into the main infirmary.

Ronon stepped over and crouched down next to Elizabeth, his eyes searching for a way he could help John with her weight as he got up from the floor. John found himself wondering if she’d agree to go, or if her dreams would be too real and she’d fight to stay right where she was, where she believed Jenna was. Between them, they managed to get her up off the floor and into John’s arms and it wasn’t until John started to walk away from the isolation room door that she started to realise what was happening.

“No,” Elizabeth groaned at him and her arms tightened as she tried to get down from his cradle. “Jenna.”

“Elizabeth,” John said, keeping his voice as light as possible. “You can’t see Jenna right now,” he added for good measure. She settled quickly and he carried her back to the isolation room and they strapped her down.

~~**~~

Radek stepped cautiously into the isolation room and looked around. Elizabeth was strapped down, her eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling; Colonel Sheppard at her side had his head on a tray table and his eyes closed as though he was asleep. Carson sat in a corner, his eyes glued to the computer screen in his hands and his lips moving as he scrolled through a document or results of some sort.

“Radek,” John’s voice reached his ears strained and dry and it forced him to swallow unwillingly. “Tell me you have good news.”

“That depends on your definition of good,” he said then closed his eyes for a silent prayer that he could take that comment back.

“What do you have?” John said with a slight tone of annoyance.

“Lady Bethania Wade was the queen elect of the Alterans until she turned seventeen and took her place as the leader of her people. Her parents died in a Jumper accident, placing her in charge before she turned 21. Two weeks before they died, her fiancé was selected, one Josiah Shand. When she took her place, she announced the creation of a new city, the plans of which her parents had been toying with for several years and she set about creating the greatest city they had ever known. She named the city Atlantis, after her grandfather, Atlas.”

Radek paused to watch John’s brow rise.

“Together, Bethan and Josiah had three children, a girl and two boys. While pregnant with the first, Bethan visited an ally, who at the time, were starting to deal with a plague that was quickly destroying their civilisation. The security team sent to protect her were all perfectly fine, as was Bethan, but there was something I can’t make sense of in her medical records to do with the plague and the baby. Either way, the baby was born healthy and lived until she was seven, when she died of a similar version of the plague that then rapidly spread through the Alterans.”

“What was the name of the daughter?” Carson asked.

“Er,” Radek pulled a few files up on his computer, noting that John’s expression had become pinched and he swallowed several times. “Jenna.”

“Oh good lord,” Carson breathed.

“She died in Atlantis, in one of the isolation rooms...”

“Aye, Iso room three.”

“Josiah was the next to become ill, having forced his way into the room to find out the status of his daughter’s health,” Radek continued. “It was Bethan who ordered all the ill to be left behind when they moved the city to Earth, which included both her sons and husband, and Bethan who set up the city council. She stated in her final log entry she did it to stop one person making such a decision to abandon so many.”

Radek looked up at John, the colonel had returned his gaze to Elizabeth, lying still prone and wide eyed on the bed. He wondered for a moment if he should just leave and email Carson Bethan’s medical record. He was on the verge of moving when John asked a question.

“How did Bethan die?”

“She starved herself,” Radek said barely above a whisper. “The last entry I could find was by a psychiatrist, or their version of one, said she had given in to the guilt of killing more than half her people.”

John’s hands came up and his head dropped into their cradle. Dread washed over Radek for just a moment before another voice interrupted anyone’s reply.

“John?” Elizabeth’s soft voice just as dry as the Colonel’s and Radek instinctively stepped forward. John was on his feet within a second, leaning over her with his hand wrapped around hers. “Make them stop.” Was all she whispered for a few seconds before tiredness took over and she drifted back into her dream state. Silence fell for a moment as Carson noted down the time and length of her moment of reality and took another reading from the attached monitors.

“Send Carson any medical notes you found,” John said, not moving from Elizabeth’s side. “Then go back to your normal duties.”

Radek nodded, aware that he wouldn’t be seen. Then he turned and left the room and walked back to the lab as though he were sleep walking. Whatever was going on, it didn’t look good.


	3. Chapter 3

John had found himself restless after Radek had visited, shifting in his chair and pacing the room. Elizabeth had headed for that isolation room and if she was dreaming of what happened to Bethan all those years ago, she’d see the death of Jenna. He couldn’t begin to imagine how that would feel, watching a child die or even watching your own child die. Watching friends was bad enough, but to see someone so small and innocent dragged away from life so early would be unimaginable pain for any parent.

He got up again, pacing the room as Carson entered. John stopped to watch for a moment as the doctor checked her vitals and pupil reactions but before Carson was finished, the restless feeling washed over him again and he found his feet carrying him across the room to the door. He needed to move, walk, jog or run, just something to work off the frustration that came with not knowing. They knew nothing except for the events going on in Elizabeth’s dream. They didn’t know why she was having the dreams, to what end they would continue or even if they’d ever stop. For all they knew, they’d go on forever until Elizabeth had been trapped deep enough or long enough to die of starvation.

John turned corners, ignored people he passed; waved Teyla and Ronon off until eventually he was running the distance from the door to the end of pier. He stopped right on the edge, the tips of his shoes just off the edge of the city and his breathing laboured from the extreme exercise. The frustration lingered, nagged at the back of his mind and he struggled to push it aside for just a moment so he could work out why he was feeling like this. When he’d first met her, he’d found Elizabeth to be a little annoying, condescending to a point and very brash. In his opinion back then, she hadn’t been completely suitable for the job – what had they been thinking putting a woman who protested the use of guns in charge of an expedition that required military presence.

Now, though, he was scared of losing her. He couldn’t figure out when that feeling had changed, or even if it had changed, for all he knew the emotional connection to her had been there from the start, from the day she approached him, a smile on her face with her hands crossed behind her back to ask him to join the expedition. She was Doctor Elizabeth Weir, expedition leader and he’d never considered her any other way, except as a friend. But now, having watched her go through this nightmare, watching her wake up and scream the way she had, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should be thinking of her another way.

He dropped down to the cold floor, sitting with his legs dangling off the edge of the pier and looked out over the ocean. He let his brow crease as he ran over the past two years with Elizabeth, even when he’d found her annoying, he’d still been overprotective, afraid to lose her or even unsure how to react around her. He’d flirted with her, teased her and had been the only person in their time there to give her birthday presents. He remembered during the storm in the first year the rush of hate and anger that filled him when Kolya told him she was dead. It had almost driven him mad and he was sure that if she’d been dead when he reached the control room, he would have slaughtered everyone in the room.

The relief that had followed finding her alive had scared him into Elizabeth’s room that evening, he knew no one knew he’d gone, but he had. Rang the chime and when she’d opened the door he just said “please”. She’d let him in and he’d spent the night watching everything she did as their conversation moved from work to friends to what they did in their spare time.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

The voice broke through John’s thinking and he turned to find a Marine standing behind him. John just quirked a brow at him and waited.

“Doctor Beckett has been trying to contact you. Doctor Weir is awake.”

The messenger turned the second John started to scramble from his seat. It didn’t matter though, John’s heart was pounding in his chest and he raced back down the pier and through the city to the infirmary. He paused at the door for a moment, composing himself and letting his breathing ease a little before he stepped forward and paused.

“Colonel,” Carson called from the end of the corridor. John turned with his brow raised. “A word, before you go in.”

John followed Carson into the main infirmary and through to his office – or what passed for one – he stopped in the open doorway and waited as Carson sat down and docked his computer.

“What’s going on?” John asked after a few minutes of waiting.

“I just wanted to warn you before you go in. She hasn’t moved or spoken since she woke up, except to ask for you.” He paused and John shifted. “There’s pain in her eyes, Colonel, but it’s as though she’s numb.”

John nodded, feeling a little numb himself. There was something going on with Elizabeth and until she was awake long enough to tell them about the dreams, they wouldn’t find out what it was. He nodded again and turned to leave the room.

He paused again at the door to the isolation room and took a deep breath before stepping inside. As Carson had warned, Elizabeth lay prone, flat on her back staring up at the ceiling; though there wasn’t much else she could do strapped to the bed. He stepped up cautiously, taking in the water in her eyes and the pain Carson had mentioned. She kept her gaze fixed on the ceiling and John took another deep breath.

“Elizabeth?” he cleared his throat, finding it dry and scratchy.

“Untie me,” she said softly, eyes still not moving from her spot on the ceiling. John faltered for a moment considering that maybe he should ask Carson first, and then he started to release the straps.

“You okay?” he asked undoing the straps over her knees first then moving to the one across her chest.

“No,” she admitted and John noted the choke in her voice and looked up as she turned her face away from him. She let out a choked sob as he released the last strap and rested his hands on her arm for comfort.

He was just formulating what to say next when Elizabeth moved. She turned her head to look at him, tears streaking down her face as she reached her arms up to him, using all the strength she had to try and wrap them around his neck. Weak from lack of food, she didn’t make it and let out a frustrated cry before John could pull her up to sit on the edge of the bed.

“It’s okay, Elizabeth. I’ve got you,” he whispered, pulling her close to him. “I’m here,” he added, letting her relax against him. He could tell she was fighting off the tears, holding in whatever pain was going through her soul at that moment in time and he didn’t have a clue how to coax her out of that state. But he also knew she would probably shut off completely if he offered to go get Doctor Heightmeyer. So he waited.

“It felt so real...” she said.

John tightened his grip, feeling his heart sink into his stomach, making him feel queasy and detached. She felt vulnerable and needy in his arms and the protective instincts were flooding him like bad weather in the middle of summer.

“What did you see?” he asked. She shook her head against his chest and uttered a low ‘no’ to protest the question. “Elizabeth,” he said almost pleading with her. “You need to tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

There was silence for a few minutes as Elizabeth tried to steady her breathing, she shifted, pulling back just slightly from him, but he felt her hands curl to grip his shirt.

“It was like I was her,” she swallowed hard. “It was as if I was living the life of the woman who built Atlantis and...” she stopped to control her breathing again. “And...” a fresh wave of tears ran down her cheeks and John couldn’t help but reach up and brush them away. “I watched my daughter die. I watched her die.” The last part came out as a whisper, filled with sadness and fear and a million and one things John couldn’t name if he tried. “Everything was so familiar, the rooms, the equipment and...” she broke off and John watched the flicker of realisation cross her face.

“And what?”

“Her husband, Josiah,” she pulled one hand away from him to scratch at the back of her neck. “He was a lot like you.”

He studied her for a moment, curious to know if she could handle the knowledge he had, that Bethan had been real and had abandoned billions of people to save them. Almost to save herself. The last thought stopped him from speaking and he pulled her back against him, stepping closer to the bed to remove almost all the distance between them. He could feel her knees at his stomach shift apart and he stepped in so he could hold her closer than he’d held even his own wife.

“Was it just a dream?” His eyes closed as the question reached his ears.

“No,” he said, regretting that he couldn’t lie to her. “Bethan was real, she married Josiah, had three kids and her daughter, Jenna, was the first to die of the great plague.”

He let the information sink in, it can’t be easy learning that you were having dreams and nightmares about a woman who lived more than 10,000 years ago.

“Elizabeth,” John asked, pushing her back up to look at him, his hands running down her arms to take her hands. “Have you been looking into the building of Atlantis?” She just shook her head no. “Have you seen the name Bethan anywhere before?” Again she shook her head and this time John sighed. “So you’re having dreams about people you’ve never heard of.”

“Doesn’t seem possible,” she said dropping her chin to her chest. “Someone’s doing this to me.”

“If they are, then who and why? Why you? Why now? What purpose could they possibly have for making you re-live that hell?”

“Maybe someone thought it was time we looked into the history of the city?”

“Yeah,” John said trying and failing to bite back the sarcasm. “The best way to do that is to force you into a horrible dream state until you die of starvation and exhaustion. Apparently they’ve gone from stupid riddles to attempted murder.”

“John, don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but these almighty beings we’re trying to learn from don’t seem to know what they’re doing right now, and that makes me wonder if they ever knew what the hell they were doing.”

“We don’t know anything.”

“We know that what’s happening to you isn’t natural or normal and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit by and watch them kill you. Not Kolya, not the Ancients, not anybody.”

Elizabeth looked up at him slowly and he tried desperately to mask the hate and anger he was feeling. He failed though, especially when she looked at him as though she were meek and mild, a damsel in distress. He knew he shouldn’t feel this protective of her and he certainty shouldn’t be showing the feeling, especially not to her. Her hands came up from her lap where he’d placed them, moving back to his chest and hooking back onto his shirt before a flicker of fear passed over her features.

“I’m sorry,” he said not completely sure why he was apologising. “I shouldn’t be this protective of you, but...” he sighed and looked down at her hands. “I know you can take care of yourself and...”

“John,” she said stopping him and he looked back up and found himself trapped in a gaze that pleaded and almost begged to be rescued. The kind of look that pulled him forward without effort and nudged her face just enough so he could kiss her. He let his lips linger, waiting for her to push him back and tell him it was wrong, but it never came. When he shifted to stop himself falling forward, he felt her fingers tighten in his shirt to pull him back.

When he pulled back from the kiss he found Elizabeth with her head bowed and her hands back in her lap. He realised belatedly that his hands were resting on her knees and he moved them to tip her chin back up.

“You need to rest.”

“I think I’ve had enough of that,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Elizabeth, I know you’re tired. You’ve been tired every time you’ve woken up and I can see it in your eyes.” Instinctively she turned away from him, unhooking her chin from his fingers and casting her eyes to the rest of the room. “I know you’re scared of ending up back in the dream...”

“No you don’t,” she interrupted. “I’m not scared, John. I’m petrified.” The strength in her voice was slightly shocking, but nothing compared to the effort she put into pushing him away. He took a step back and reached out as she pushed off the bed. She hadn’t eaten in days, hadn’t slept without the nightmarish dreams for just as long – if not longer and he wondered if she actually had the strength to stand up anymore. John caught her as she crumbled to the ground, easing her down as she let out a frustrated growl.

“You need to sleep while the dreams have stopped.”

“They don’t stop,” she said and he licked his lips as a fresh set of tears started new tracks down her face. “Every time I close my eyes to go to sleep, they’re there and I don’t want to watch more people die, I don’t want to watch you... Josiah die. No matter where I am, they follow and I always wake up back here, strapped down as though I’m going to hurt someone.”

She leaned forward, wrapping her arms across her chest and curling up so much her forehead came close to touching the floor. She whimpered slightly and John rested a hand on her back, his mind betraying him for a moment’s fantasy of the hospital gowns back home. As he leaned forward, he caught sight of movement in the observation room and looked up to see Carson and Teyla standing there. He didn’t want to think about how long they’d been watching so he turned his attention back to Elizabeth.

“Maybe you’ve seen enough,” he offered. “Maybe the reason you’re still awake now, is that they’ve shown you the things you needed to see.”

“And what if they haven’t?” Elizabeth asked, her voice soft and tainted with fear. “What if they’ve only just started?”

He glanced up at Carson, noting that Teyla had moved away from the window and lingered in the background before he swallowed and leaned in close to her.

“Then I’ll be here to untie you when you wake up. I won’t leave until the dreams do.”

Elizabeth slowly uncurled, her tear filled, tired eyes turning towards him and all John could do was give her an encouraging smile. He could see the ‘why?’ on her face and he just didn’t have an answer. What answer could he give? ‘It feels right?’ or ‘we’re closer than friends’ didn’t feel like good enough answers to him.

“You need to sleep too,” she said. “And if you’re here babysitting my nightmare, who’s running the city?”

“McKay and Lorne,” he said then considered the implications of that statement. “With Teyla to keep them from killing each other. And I’m sure Carson can bring me a bed or something to sleep on.” He didn’t dare look up to the observation room to see if either of them had taken the hints, looking up would have told her they were watching and the last thing someone like Elizabeth needed, was to have someone else watch her break down. “Come on,” John said wrapping an arm around Elizabeth and helping her back up to the bed.

As he settled her on the bed, the door opened and a nurse backed in pulling a bed. Carson followed her in, guiding the bed to a space between Elizabeth and the door and then picked up a few items from the top and moved towards them.

“Hello love,” Carson said placing a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like someone’s sapped the life out of me,” she said with a small smile. “Are you gonna sedate me?”

“No, I just want to set up an IV so I don’t have to treat you for dehydration by morning,” he said with a smile. “A nurse will come in every few hours to change the bag over, but other than that, you’re on your own. Use the emergency button if you need it.”

“Right,” John said, licking his lips nervously.

“So you both know, my nurses are under orders not to give sleeping pills or sedatives to you,” he said more to Elizabeth, “and if they come across any problems, they are to wake me. Sleep,” he emphasized the word to Elizabeth, “well.”

“So long as you don’t say ‘sweet dreams’,” Elizabeth joked. John couldn’t help but smirk at the comment as Carson left the room.

“So,” John said, stripping out of his jacket and boots. “Do you snore? Talk in your sleep? Anything else I should know about aside from sleepwalking?” He asked shoving his boots under the bed to keep them out of the way and climbing into the bed.

“Not that I’ve been told of,” Elizabeth said, sounding like her normal self. “But these days who could say?”

John smirked and shifted onto his side to face her, his hand tucked behind his head to prop him up. Elizabeth was on her back, though he could tell she was uncomfortable as she shifted her shoulders in place. He watched her for a moment, considering his question carefully and his reasons for asking it and when she finally settled he spoke.

“Elizabeth,” he swallowed. “How long have you been having the dreams?”

“A few weeks. They used to just happen at night, as though my brain was having a second life in my sleep.”

John’s mind flickered to the previous morning when he’d walked in on one such new life dream and he blinked it away as quick as he could.

“What happens in them?”

Elizabeth turned her head to look at him and he knew he was smirking just a little with the thought in his head and the implication now hovering in the space between them. He tried hard to clear his expression and knew the faces he was pulling in the process were amusing Elizabeth.

“I just think it might help understand why you’re having the dreams if we know what happens in them,” John offered. “What happened in the first dream?” Elizabeth sighed, looking back up at the ceiling.

“I was about fourteen. Bethan was about fourteen,” she corrected with a shake of the head. “Her parents had set up a meeting with possible husbands and she didn’t want to meet with pig headed boys who thought they were the best. Not that I can blame her.”

She paused and let out a sigh and John watched as she vanished into the memory.

“There were four of them, I remember thinking they were just scrawny boys who had nothing going for them except that they might get lucky to be married to me. One of them, he just couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. He was smiling when I walked in and it only got worse as he introduced himself. Josiah Shand, smug smile and top class idiot. I hated all of them, probably to spite my parents because I hadn’t been given the opportunity to meet all the boys. I was just told, these four are acceptable and that was that.”

“But I had to spend three weeks with them, three weeks in the company of four stupid boys. The more time I spent with them, the more I hated them and wondered when men would be scratched off the planet. Then Josiah came to see me one night, flower in one hand and a story on his lips. Told me that his grandmother used to feed him stories about the promise the monarchy once made to them. The grand city of the Alterans, where people could have their own space, no one went hungry and there were always windows to look out. He told me that he’d love to get the chance to build such a city, to live and die in it with a beautiful wife and their children. I knew he meant me, but all I could do was hate him.

“He tried to kiss me and all I could do was slap him,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “After that the dreams were pretty much the same, Josiah trying to prove he’d be the right choice, until her parents died in an accident and she turned to him for comfort. They were married in a beautiful room filled with flowers,” she told him and he could hear the awe in her voice that told him it was beyond imagination. “It was so beautiful. Shortly after, they started drawing up plans for a city Josiah wanted to name Alteria, but she overruled him with Atlantis. It wasn’t until they started to build the city that they started working on their family.” She sighed again and John could hear her breathing settle as she slipped closer to sleep. She jerked suddenly and John raised a brow as she shifted onto her side to face him.

“Don’t fight it, Elizabeth,” he soothed as her eyes slipped closed. “I’m here to look after you,” he whispered as her breathing evened out.

He watched her for a moment, her features relaxed and her IV tangled hand tucked under her cheek. She was beautiful like this, completely relaxed and peaceful, more peaceful than he ever remembered seeing her. He turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, fixing his eyes on some pattern that ran straight across the edge of the room. Elizabeth had seen the building of the city; she’d probably seen the designs of the room, watched people put the patterns in place. She’d also watched the woman responsible for it get married to someone who looked like him. She had said that, Josiah looked a lot like him.

The smirk grew on his face a split second before the realisation came to him. The dream she’d been having when he’d gone to wake her up had been erotic, at least, she’d been dreaming of Bethan and Josiah creating their family, dreaming naughty things about him. He quirked a brow and looked over at Elizabeth, still fast asleep on her side facing him. If she knew what he was thinking, she’d have blushed beet red. John huffed a quiet laugh, put the thought out of his mind and closed his eyes.

~~**~~

He watched her carefully for days, they all did and somehow that was only slightly comforting. The morning after her first real night’s sleep, Carson had woken John with a raised brow and it hadn’t been until he tried to sit up that he realised Elizabeth was in his bed, curled up against his side. For the next few days she’d remained there and John had spent each night with her, though it went the same way, he fell asleep alone and woke up with company.

The first day she was released he knew she wandered the halls and he knew she was picking out the differences from the city shortly after it was built and comparing them to the here and now. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for her to do, but it started to worry him that she’d let it continue to take over her waking time as well as her sleepless nights. After the evening meal, he started to consider the possibility that the last few days had been a simple break in whatever was being shown to Elizabeth.

John arrived at her room later in the evening, determined to make sure she tried to sleep and a little afraid she’d force herself to stay awake. He couldn’t let himself hesitate at the door and rang the chime before he could consider that she was already asleep. When she opened the door less than a minute later she was dressed for bed, a light green top and green and white checker pants brought on an automatic eyebrow raise before the smirk took over.

“Wow,” he said finally meeting her eye. “Green looks good on you.”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed at him and she huffed out a hum in reply and turned back into the room. He took that as a welcome and moved into the room, letting the door close behind him, and dropped onto the sofa in her main bedroom. He watched her for a moment as she padded barefoot across the room and into the bathroom, then he slumped back, noting that the door was open and there was a slight sound of running water.

“So,” he started looking around the room at the layout and placement of books and ornaments. “Back to your own room at last?” Elizabeth didn’t reply and he assumed she was too busy brushing her teeth or something. “Bet you can’t wait to sleep in your own comfy bed again.”

“You looking for an invitation, John?” She said emerging a moment later fresh faced and without make up. “Or just attempting small talk?”

“Just making small talk,” he said a little defensively and perhaps a little higher in pitch than he’d like. “Can’t a guy talk instead of sitting awkwardly in a woman’s room?”

“A guy,” she thought about it, “yes. You however,” she faked the thinking this time, “doesn’t seem to be in your nature. Or is Rodney’s Kirk metaphor just a way to pick on you?”

“I think he’s trying to get under my skin, and failing.”

Elizabeth slipped into the bed and fussed with the sheets and pillows for a moment before she sat still and stared at her fingers.

“Did you come to check on my sleeping habits?”

“Just here to make sure you’re alright,” he offered. “You spent a week with me in the same room at night, didn’t want to leave you without any company.”

“I’m fine, John,” she said and it took a moment before she looked up at him and even then she hadn’t managed to completely mask the tinge of fear she felt. He hesitated this time, before he pushed up from the sofa and moved towards her. He sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment and tried for a friendly smile.

“You know where I am if you need someone to talk to,” he said seriously. Elizabeth nodded and he watched her swallow before he got up and headed for the door.

“John,” she said. He paused and turned to look at her, again she avoided his eyes, picking at the covers before she spoke. “Thank you.” He smiled, shifted slightly then turned and left.

~~**~~

“We need to leave them behind,” the words were out of her lips before she could even work out what she was talking about. “All of them.”

“You can’t be serious, Bethan,” one of the men protested and she recognised the doctor from her dreams, from her horrifying dreams. “Josiah is amongst the sick; you want to just leave him behind?”

“What choice do we have? If we stay here we’ll all become ill, if we take them with us it will spread through the population and the new world will become deserted.” She paused, the realisation that she was leaving Josiah, leaving her husband and the one man she’d ever loved behind to suffer and die sank in fast. She struggled to contain her emotions and had to swallow hard against the lump in her throat before she could finish the meeting. “That’s final.” She said before getting up and hastily leaving the room.

She shut the door behind her and stood staring out the window at the glow of the city in the dark night. Across the expanse of their new city, her husband lay in a confinement room unaware that she’d just signed his death warrant. She squared her shoulders before she turned and headed for the bathroom.


	4. Chapter 4

Elizabeth woke suddenly, her breath caught in her chest, hanging for just a second before she actually managed to let it go. She took several deep breaths holding them for just a moment before letting them go in an attempt to stave off the tears that threatened to fall. It was happening again, she was never going to get rid of these dreams, never going to be able to sleep right through the night ever again. She’d forever be strapped to a bed in the infirmary with Carson and John looking in on her through the high observation window.

She kicked the covers off the end of the bed and scrambled to her feet. She needed to stay awake, she needed to stay calm and she needed to know she was back in Atlantis, her Atlantis with security in the gate room, friends in their beds resting comfortably and John only a few levels below her on the other side of the tower.

John.

She turned to the door without thinking, charged through it and started to walk the curve of the inner tower circle to the other side, she’d barely made it a few steps before she broke into a run and about half way around the tears returned and she couldn’t hold them back. Her bare feet padded hard on the cold floor, her breathing laboured with the effort of the run and the tears streaming down her face, she turned the curve to the other side and rushed through a doorway to the stairwells and ran down them as fast as she could to John’s level.

His was only a few doors from the stairs and she couldn’t stop herself from opening the door to check he was still there, to see him where she wanted to be – asleep. She let out a sob in the darkness at the sight of a lumpy bed and brought a hand up to her mouth to muffle the one that followed it. John turned in his bed to look at her and she forced her lips to stay together as her body began to shake with absolute fear.

“Elizabeth?” John’s voice was harsh and raw, she’d disturbed his dreams. Probably pleasant dreams of some beautiful woman he’d taken a shine too. “You okay?”

“No,” she let out desperately. She wanted it to end. She’d do anything for it to just be over, no more dreams and sleepless nights, no more clues into something horrible that happened more than 10,000 years ago. But most of all, she wanted to stop feeling as though she was responsible, wanted to stop feeling guilty for the death of a daughter she didn’t have and the suffering of a husband she never knew.

The pain in her heart became too much and she wrapped her arms around herself and curled down to the ground as she had done in the infirmary days ago. But John was too quick this time, he’d thrown the covers off and moved towards her before her knees hit the ground and his arms felt strong and comfortable around her as he pulled her close.

Her fingers wrapped around his arm and she pressed herself against his chest, she didn’t want to be alone anymore, didn’t think she could manage to survive this alone anymore and even though John felt too comfortable, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She couldn’t work like this, she couldn’t even live like this because right now her choices were crazy or completely crazy and she couldn’t figure out where the padded rooms were in this doomed city.

John stretched up behind her and for a moment she thought he was going to get up and leave her there, before the soft sound of his door closing met her ears and she felt herself relax at the feeling of being wrapped completely in John. Her knees on the hard floor were starting to ache and she could feel the wet patch from her tears against her cheek, she must have soaked right through his t-shirt by now. Both her hands were clinging to one of his arms, the one that ran across her chest to grip her shoulder while his other hand ran up and down her back soothingly. She didn’t feel soothed. All she felt right now was the overtaking numbness of reality, the dreams were coming back.

~~**~~

John waited until Elizabeth had calmed down a little, there would be no point in convincing her to go back to bed in her own room while she was hysterical. She simply wouldn’t listen to him. He tried hard in the meantime to fight off the surge of emotion that wanted to take up a sword and fight off the demons in her sleep. He hadn’t yet figured out how or when he’d become so attached to this woman and he still wasn’t sure if what he felt was love or just a close friendship. Either way right now the woman he cared most for was hurting and they needed to find a way to stop these dreams before she completely lost control and did something irrational to put an end to them.

“Elizabeth,” he said as she calmed down to hiccups. “You need to sleep; you can’t stay awake all day and night. Eventually exhaustion will win.” He paused wondering if there was a way to get her back to her room and back into bed, she’d gone willingly before, but he would bet anything that she wouldn’t go so easily now. “Come on,” he said eventually coaxing her to sit up.

She moved slowly, her hands drawing down his arm to keep a grip on his wrist, there was something about him worrying her and she knew he could use it to his advantage.

“Come on,” he said again, getting up and pulling her to her feet and turned to the door. “I’ll come and stay with you.” She looked at him with a mixture of fear and disbelief, as if to ask him if he’d gone mad. He gave her a reassuring smile before turning her towards the door. “How long have you known me?”

“That’s a confusing question at the moment.”

“Not really,” he said moving down the corridor towards the stairs. “I was asking Elizabeth, not Bethan.” Elizabeth gave a small huffed laugh at him as she started up the stairs ahead of him.

“Three years,” she said, keeping her back to him as she moved upwards ahead of him. He had to lick his lips and force himself not to think about her backside in the green and white pants.

“So in three years,” he said, his eyes drawn back to the natural sway of her hips. “Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”

“No,” she said honestly and followed it by a yawn.

“In three years have I ever lied to you?”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Just making sure you’re not reading the wrong thing from my ‘I’ll come stay with you’,” he offered.

Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks and he collided with her slightly. Thankful that his eyes had been on her feet at the time, he raised an eyebrow to her and grinned.

“Did I forget to add that I was trying to ease your mind and distract you from the fact that you will be getting some sleep tonight?”

“Yes,” she said turning to look at him. “John,” she paused and he could tell she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. “What if the dreams never go away?”

“Then we’ll figure out a way for you to deal with them and get some rest.”

“But they’re so real,” she said after a pause. He could tell the tears and fears were coming back, he could sense the weight of the pain from her previous dreams. “I actually saw a seven year old girl, _my_ seven year old girl die because of something I did and I couldn’t even hold her. How do you live with that?”

“She wasn’t your daughter,” John offered. “You just have to keep reminding yourself that.” He sighed and nudged her forward through the door to her level. “And on those occasions that you can’t remember that, I’ll be here for you.”

Elizabeth nodded. They made their way to her room in silence, turning the corridors easily and thankful no one else was up at this hour. John could only imagine the rumours that would circulate from someone who saw them both out for a stroll, Elizabeth in her pyjamas and bare feet while John wandered along in boxers and a t-shirt heading for her room. He’d probably get weird enough looks tomorrow when he walked back to his room in much the same fashion only without Elizabeth.

“Why?” Elizabeth asked, just before they reached her door.

“Why what?”

“Why will you be here on the days I can’t remember that?”

Confusion slid into place for a moment before John realised what he’d said. A promise to be here when the feeling of losing her daughter was too much to bear was not an easy thing to promise, especially when he went off world so often. He waited until they turned into her room and the door closed behind him before he responded.

“Because I trust you, because I wouldn’t want to go through what you saw through Bethan and I sure as hell couldn’t stand to one side and watch you take that pain alone.” He dropped onto her sofa and fiddled with one of the pillows before he mumbled an addition. “And because I care too much for you.”

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth said and he looked up to find her sitting on the side of her bed. “I didn’t catch that.” From the look on her face, she had heard it, but couldn’t believe she’d heard it right.

“You’re meant to be in that bed, not sitting on the side of it,” he said changing the subject as he turned to lie down along the sofa. “You can’t sleep sitting up.”

“How do you know?” she said cheekily.

“Well, I don’t, not after seeing you sleep walk into my room.”

Elizabeth watched him for a moment and he found himself worried that he’d said something stupid, something to upset her. Eventually she moved and slipped back into the bed, tucking the covers under her arms as she turned onto her side to face him.

“Are you going to sleep like that all night?”

“Maybe,” he said trying to avoid telling her he was planning to sneak out as soon as she was asleep again. “Or maybe I’ll find a blanket when you’re asleep.”

Elizabeth dropped her head back onto the pillow with a deep sigh, she’d probably guessed his plan and while that hadn’t been what he wanted, he also knew he wouldn’t avoid staying all night if that would help her sleep. What she’d dreamt tonight was probably just a memory of her previous nights; it might not have been another dream like the others.

John watched her stare at the ceiling for a moment, her jaw set and eyes fixed on a random spot before she let them close. She took a deep breath to force her body to relax and he waited silently as her breathing evened out and she drifted off to sleep. He shifted slightly, moving his feet off the sofa and pushing up to a sitting position. Elizabeth didn’t stir and he counted this as a good sign, but still he waited a few more minutes before he stood up.

Slowly, quietly, almost on tip toe, John made his way to the door, pausing every few steps to make sure Elizabeth was still asleep. When he reached the door he paused, a sense of guilt washing over him at abandoning her and he mouthed a silent ‘damn’ before he reached his hand out to the door sensor. The swish of it sliding to the side seemed louder and made him cringe and he waited with his breath held to see if she’d wake from the sound. Silence continued for a moment and just as he took a step forward his heart sank.

“John.” It sounded almost like a plea. “Please don’t go,” she begged.

His whole body relaxed on the threshold of her door and he turned his head to look at her. The dim light made it hard to make out her features, but as she shifted he caught the flicker of light in her tears and his chest tightened.

“I know you think I’m crazy, I know everyone has expectations about me being strong and capable but...”

“I don’t,” he said turning back into the room and shutting the door. “I don’t think you’re crazy, I think you’re under enormous stress right now. And I’ve never had expectations, you’re human like the rest of us you deserve a moment to vent frustration and sorrow.”

“Then why do I feel so useless? So weak?”

She practically sobbed out the last part and John crossed the room before he noticed his feet were moving. He pulled a tissue from the box on her bedside and soaked up her tears as he sat down on the bed.

“Because someone’s doing this to you, you spent a few weeks with interrupted sleep and you’re still trying to catch up. Because you afraid to sleep right now, you’re stressed because of it, you’re missing work because of it and you know there are about 200 people in this city wondering what’s going on and watching to see what you’ll do next.”

“Please don’t go,” she said. “I feel like I’m losing my mind and every time I watch you walk away it feels like I’ve just left you somewhere to die.” She tried to control her breathing for a moment. “It’s horrible, I just feel so empty when you’re gone that I think I shouldn’t be here, that I need to be punished for killing everyone and leave this place to someone more capable and just...”

“No,” he said stopping her from talking about suicide. Bethan had killed herself, but he’d be doomed to hell before he let Elizabeth do the same thing. “I won’t go,” he said turning so he could lie down on the bed in front of her. She shifted back slightly to make room for him and he quirked a brow.

“Is your bed bigger than mine?”

“I’m entitled to the better bed,” she said only half managing the joke. He smiled anyway.

“Get some sleep,” he said. “I promise I won’t get up and leave before you wake.”

“Thank you,” she said before closing her eyes.

~~**~~

John’s mind drifted up from the depth of sleep to the light sense of reality, a soft moan drew his attention, pulling him to awareness and he peeked an eye open to see what was going on. Elizabeth lay on her side with her back against him, she fidgeted on the bed and pressed closer to him and John’s mind and body sprang to awareness.

She moaned and John’s brow shot up – she was dreaming and the idea that she was dreaming the same thing he’d walked into a week ago flooded him with a slight tinge of fear and jealousy. He reached up, running his hand up and down her arm until she settled and then rested back against the pillow. As much as he wanted to see it play out, she’d be completely embarrassed and never talk to him if she found out he let it continue.

Silence fell for a moment and just as John was drifting off to sleep, Elizabeth sighed and a soft moan left her lips.

“John.”

~~**~~

Carson stabbed at his tablet computer with venom; it was frustrating seeing all his test results come back perfectly normal when he knew there had to be something going on. So far, all he’d managed to do was rule out any drugs that could be causing Elizabeth’s dreams, every other test he’d done in the past week had come back negative. No problems with her heart, brain or any other part of her anatomy. He sighed, dropped his computer on the desk and sat back with his hands over his face for a moment.

“Long day?” Kate said sitting down opposite him.

“Getting longer by the minute,” Carson offered as John appeared in the doorway. “Let’s shut the door for this meeting, shall we?” he said and John compliantly closed the door before taking his seat next to Kate. “Okay, Elizabeth has now had a good week of sleep, and though she’s woken on her own accord a few times each night, she’s had no repeats of the dreams she had before since she woke up. Last night,” he said pausing for a breath, “she spent the night alone in her own room.”

“Not alone for all of it,” John interjected. Carson raised a brow at him and watched out the corner of his eye as Kate’s shock at the statement turned to a slight touch of disapproval.

“Care to fill us in, Colonel?”

“I spoke to Elizabeth as she was getting ready for bed, must have left her room around eleven so she could get some sleep. I only saw the clock in her room after that, at two this morning after she’d come running into my room shaking like a rattle snake and crying that she’d had another of those dreams. She was afraid she’d never get rid of them, so I walked her back to her room, waited until she was asleep and tried to sneak out.”

“I take it you didn’t get far,” Carson said watching as Kate made a note on her own tablet computer.

“I managed to step out of the room before she woke up and practically begged me to stay. Told me that whenever I wasn’t somewhere nearby she had a feeling as though she’d lost me, said she even felt as though it was her fault for leaving me to die somewhere. When she started to talk about thinking she needed to be punished for it, I went back in and stayed.”

“Suicide?” Carson asked exchanging a glance with Kate.

“She won’t,” John said his voice full of surety. “I talked to her this morning she said the feeling wasn’t as powerful as the sense that she’d lost her daughter. But she said it was there and that’s usually when she’d come looking for me, just to check.”

Carson sighed. “She can’t go back to work like this, if her emotional state degrades and she starts losing sleep again...” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. “Let’s work one night at a time, what happens tonight when she goes to bed?”

“I’ll be there,” John said. The look of disapproval sharpened in Kate’s features. “And I’ll be there every night until we know for sure these dreams have gone,” John added, almost defiantly. Carson gave Kate a hard look, challenging her to question the reasons behind it. “Look, when I wasn’t there last night, she had a dream, told me this morning that she’d watched Bethan make the choice to abandon the planet and all their sick and move on. It freaked her out, it freaked me out. But when I was there, laying with her in her b... room, she slept soundly, even dreamed about something else.”

“That’s interesting,” Carson said picking up his computer and flipping back through the files on Elizabeth’s stay in the infirmary. “She had one of those dreams one night shortly after she was admitted, after you’d spent a night with her. She refused to go back to the sleep and even managed to stop the nurse giving her a sedative. But every other night you were here, she slept fine.”

“Yeah, I came to the same conclusion, which is why I’ll be with her tonight. For some reason she can sleep when I’m there.”

“Fine,” Carson said, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Kate turned sharply to look at him. He gave her another look to keep her quiet and nodded to John. “For now, we’ll go with that, until we can figure this out.”

John nodded and glanced at Kate who had wisely busied herself with the computer, then he thanked Carson and got up. Carson followed John’s movement to the door, holding up a finger for Kate to remain silent until he was sure the Colonel was out of earshot before turning his attention to their resident psychiatrist.

“I assumed by the look on your face that you have some reservations about this arrangement and,” he pointed once again when she opened her mouth to respond, “I didn’t feel it was prudent for you to say anything in front of the Colonel. The two of us are the heads of our departments and this conversation should stay between us. Feel free,” he sat back in his chair while he finished making some notations in Elizabeth’s file.

“I cannot believe that the only reason for the halt in the dreams is Colonel Sheppard’s presence. There must be some other cause that we haven’t discovered yet,” Kate sat forward in her seat, resting her tablet PC on the edge of his desk.

“Lass, my staff monitored Elizabeth’s condition closely during her stay in the infirmary and I can say with the utmost certainty that nothing was overlooked. Based on this recent information, I have no doubts whatsoever that Colonel Sheppard’s presence is the only thing that has afforded that woman a decent night’s sleep,” Carson lifted one brow, waiting for Kate to process that information.

“Even if it is, Carson, I just do not believe it is mentally healthy for Elizabeth to become this dependent on Colonel Sheppard. There must be something else we can do…”

“Do not talk to me about her mental health, Kate,” Carson cut her off, his irritation causing him to talk faster and with a heavier brogue. “Not only am I looking after Elizabeth’s mental health but physical as well. If she continues on the path that she’s on, she’ll drop from malnutrition or exhaustion and the Colonel is the one person on this base that can bully Elizabeth until he gets his way. He always has her best interests at heart and won’t let anything happen to her and while this arrangement might be a little unorthodox, I believe he is her only chance at finding out the root of these dreams and working past them. You can disapprove all you want to, lass, even note it on record but I am directly responsible for the medical welfare of the personnel and I am quite confident in the Colonel helping Elizabeth make her way through this. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he cocked his head towards the door, making his point clear – this meeting was over.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next several weeks, John kept close to Elizabeth whenever he could while listening to the rumours that floated around. People in the city were very aware that Elizabeth’s illness was still lingering, though none of them were sure what was wrong with her. John became very aware of people watching them every time they stepped into the mess hall together; found it slightly unnerving when they started chatting about him carrying her food for her. He brushed it off though; he was just making sure she ate.

When he couldn’t keep close by, John made sure she was comfortable and had something to pass the time. He worked on the assumption that keeping her occupied took away the feelings of regret and dread, for the most part it worked and for the other times, Elizabeth would go and talk to Carson.

With each day, John would make sure she was at breakfast, usually walking with her from her room down to the mess hall and sitting through the meal with her. Most of the time, he only took a bite from his breakfast when she had one of hers. After a while though, she began to get back into her usual eating habits. He’d get lunch for the both of them most of the time, finding some remote spot in the city to sit quietly and chat about anything that came to mind. Then dinner would again be a trip to the mess hall. In between meals, John would do his job as normal, then at the end of the day he would drop into her office and collect her computer before spending the evening in her room keeping her updated with current events.

For most of the time, John knew what he was doing was helping her, it felt good, it felt right and most of all, it felt like progress. The rumours about their relationship, he knew as he always did, were escalated by the fact he was always with her, seemed to drift away until he stopped on the way to the balcony one lunch time. A tray in his hand held both their meals, sandwiches, a piece of fruit each and drinks, but lying on the side of the tray next to Elizabeth’s meal, John had carefully placed a chrysanthemum. He knew she liked them, the piece of home that reminded her of her mother. It was this flower that caught his attention though, made him rethink why he was doing this, reconsider that he wasn’t spending all this time with Elizabeth to help her. He’d been the gentleman, carried her meals, and brought her things she needed, such as lunch, a picnic even. He realized that he stepped over the line into falling in love with her.

He had to take several deep breaths to push the idea away before he could join her on the balcony that day, but the possibility that he was actually in love with her was quickly settling in and he became very aware of every little thing he did for her. He didn’t want their situation to change and he had no idea if Elizabeth felt anything for him or if he was simply a close friend helping her out at this moment. He just knew that right now, he had almost everything he wanted.

He lay on his back at night, most of the time with his arm trapped under Elizabeth’s head and thought about what to do next. Should he make a move, talk to her about it, find a way to show her he was interested or just let it pass? The possibility that he was just feeling this way now while she is so vulnerable crossed his mind several times each night before he drifted off to sleep. It wasn’t until the morning seven weeks after her release from the infirmary that things between them took a sharp change.

When John woke he could instantly feel the pressure of Elizabeth on him. It wasn’t the first time he’d woken with her resting on his chest so he was prepared to stay where he was until she pulled out of her comfortable sleep state. The other thing he was very aware of was a little more painful and embarrassing. He was hard, and as he went to bed in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt he had no doubt that Elizabeth would pick up on his erection pretty quick. He shifted slightly and Elizabeth moaned and moved against him, her leg drifting up over his knee to drop between his and her hand drifting down from his chest to his stomach.

He felt his cock twitch at the possibility of her moving just a little more to rub against him. John closed his eyes tightly; he had to get rid of it before she moved again or worse, got up. He thought of anything but her, the infirmary, the Wraith having that horrible bug stuck to his neck from the first year here. But the problem was each of these things and places he could associate with Elizabeth. She’d recently been in the infirmary and him with her. He’d do anything to protect her from the Wraith, including put himself in danger to save her and the bug on his neck reminded him of something he had wanted to say all those years ago.

 _‘I'd like to say something, while I still can.’_

 _‘Don’t! You are gonna get through this.’_

He’d wanted to say he wished things were different, that he wasn’t under her command and he could ask her out on a date. But she’d stopped him; she’d sensed he was going to say his goodbyes and tried to give him some hope. He was jolted out of his musing when Elizabeth shifted again and her knee rose against his thigh, her knee coming into contact with his crotch.

“Elizabeth,” he croaked. Elizabeth hummed against him, stretching her palm out over his chest. “Elizabeth,” he tried again.

“Sorry,” she said shortly and turned in the bed to face away from him.

John swallowed for a moment, squeezing his eyes closed. He opened them a moment later and let out a sigh before turning to look at her. He picked up his hand and poked her in the back once to get her attention but she didn’t move.

“Elizabeth,” he said poking her again. Still she didn’t reply so he reached over and pulled her onto her back, laying her over his side. “Hey,” he said with a smile. “Can I ask you something?” Elizabeth just watched him with a quirked brow. “Do the rumours about us bother you?”

“Which rumours?”

“Any of them. Does it bother you that people are talking about us hooking up each night?”

“No,” she said. “They don’t know anything, they’re just guessing and people always assume that when you share a room sex follows.”

John had to swallow hard and wipe the details of that idea out of his head before he acted on them.

“Does it bother you?” she asked.

“A little. We’re the ranking people in this city and their discussing us having sex, what if that made it back home and into the ears of the IOA?”

“There are no rules for that John. Only the military fraternisation rule holds up here, they couldn’t do anything to either of us if we did have sex.” She studied him for a moment and he could practically taste the question in the air before she asked it. “Do you want to go back to how things were?”

“No,” he said, perhaps a little too fast. “No,” he said again with a smile. “I kinda like waking up with a beautiful woman curled against my side. It’s just awkward sometimes.”

“Like this morning?” she asked with a smile. “Sorry about that, I don’t know why I thought that was...”

“For you?” he asked with a grin and watched the blush spread across her face. She turned away from him again. This time, when John reached out, he pulled her right over onto her back and rolled onto his side, almost pinning her to the bed. “It was,” he said before leaning in and kissing her. He was tentative at first, wondering if what he was doing was the right thing, or even what she wanted. For all he knew she had just been teasing him, playing with his libido for the morning, it wouldn’t be the first time.

When Elizabeth started to return the kiss, he deepened it, showing that he wasn’t just messing around here, he’d been thinking about this for a while now. But when he pulled back, Elizabeth turned her head away from him and his heart sank.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just,” she paused and took a deep breath. “Just the last of the dreams coming back to me.”

“The last of the bad dreams or the last dream you had?” he said with a smile. “I woke up in the night at one point and you were dreaming away and just as I was drifting back into dream land, you whispered something.” She blushed and he leaned in close to her ear. “You whispered my name. You were dreaming about me.” Her blush deepened and he smiled, knowing now that they had been erotic dreams. “I take it they were good dreams,” he said placing a kiss on her neck. “Sounded good to me,” he nuzzled his way up to her ear as his leg slipped between hers, pressing his erection against her hip.

Elizabeth’s hand came up to rest on his shoulder and he pulled back, forcing it down onto his chest. He balanced on his elbow and placed his hand over hers to shift her fingers down and away from his shoulder before he let his fingers run down her bare arm to her shoulder and then down her side so he could slip his hand under her top and press gently against the skin of her stomach.

“You can stop me anytime you think the dreams are better,” he offered with a smirk as his hand moved up under her shirt towards her breasts. He watched, her, smirking as he moved, waiting for a sign to stop. When he found no resistance, he leaned in and kissed her again, his hand pressing in at her ribs just below her breasts. He couldn’t resist the smile as Elizabeth’s arms came up to wrap around him and she moaned as her knee rose just slightly and pressed against him.

He slipped his fingers back down her skin, feeling her shudder at the touch and moved them under the waistband of her pants. He teased at the elastic of her panties for a moment before he moved to her hip and down over her thigh until he was trapped by her clothing. Elizabeth gasped as he moved and as the kiss broke he moved down to her neck to search for tender patches he could tease. She shifted, adjusting her position, moving more onto her side to face him and he used the motion to run his hand back up her thigh and around to her backside.

He would go crazy soon, trying hard not to concentrate on his erection, now painfully hard and twitching against her leg. He gave one buttock a firm squeeze and moved up her back, drawing small circles over her skin as he licked at a soft spot behind her ear.

“God I wish I had dreams this good,” he whispered.

“So do I,” she replied, arching into him and pressing her breasts against his chest.

John chuckled against her neck and moved his hand back around to draw her shirt up and over her head. Elizabeth moved slightly, almost sitting up so he could completely remove the shirt, leaving her completely topless. He couldn’t stop himself from licking his lips if he tried, they were suddenly dry and his taste buds were just screaming at him to steal a lick at her nipples.

His hand came up, running along the contours of her breast, lingering touches that put no pressure on them, but he could feel the skin under his fingertips. Elizabeth shifted, trying to manipulate his movements, but he kept his touches light. He couldn’t draw his eyes away, she was beautiful, he knew that already, but being this close and seeing everything without barriers was mind numbing. He continued for a few minutes more before drawing a line down to her belly button and then moving out to rest on her hip before he started to tease the waist band of her clothing down a little.

He kissed her again, just for a moment before he moved slowly down her neck and chest with little kisses and nips along the skin and over her collar bone before he moved down to her breasts. He lightened his touches again, kissing gently, mimicking the movements of his fingers before he drifted up over one perked nipple. They both shuddered at the touch and he had to close his eyes and think of every horrible thing he could to stop from coming on the spot. When he’d settled, he drew his tongue over her nipple slowly.

He pushed her back by the hip, laying her on her back on the bed as he sucked in her nipple. She let out a low moan and tried to arch against him but he held her in place. When she relaxed into his touch he moved his hand back under her pants and slipped them into her panties to draw along the edges of her sex. Her hips twisted for more contact and John drew back both his hand and his lips to look up at her, flushed and beautiful.

“Someone’s eager,” he teased.

“You think I’ve only had one dream?” She asked then grinned at him. “Maybe one a week.”

“Well I guess I’ve got some catching up to do,” he said, diving back in to wrap his lips around her other nipple as his hand moved back to her core. He teased lightly along her sex before pressing in with his finger and dragging back up to her clit, barely making contact with the small bundle of nerves.

Elizabeth gasped and moaned at the same time, her breath catching in her throat and her hips moving up to increase the contact. He chuckled against her nipple, concentrating on keeping his suckling light and drawing his fingers between the two places she wanted him to touch most.

“You’re a rotten tease,” she moaned, snaking her hand up from her side to press against his hardness. John gasped and almost jumped at the unexpected contact and glared up at her.

"Who's the tease, with the dreams and everything?" he asked.

“My dreams are private,” she said, almost to a whisper. “This,” she said squeezing his cock, “is anything but private.”

“Don’t do that,” he moaned, dropping his head back to her breasts and pulling his hand back so he could start moving her pants and underwear off. He pushed down her clothing on one side before moving to the other, working them off slowly and making sure to have contact with as much of her skin as possible. He drew down from her breasts, placing gentle kisses down her belly as he moved closer to her core and worked her remaining clothing off.

He shifted to lie between her legs, shoving her pants off the end of the bed and let out a slow breath against her skin before leaning in to drag his tongue slowly along her sex. Her taste buzzed through him as though he’d been injected with a muscle relaxer, tingling its way down to his cock and up to his brain to remove any thoughts he’d had at that moment. Above him, Elizabeth was breathing hard and John could only imagine the sensation she felt with the contact, though that’s the last thing he should have thought about.

He moved to his knees, still keeping himself between her legs and leaned over to kiss her gently, passionately. As he drew back, he placed a kiss on her chest before sitting back up and pulling off his t-shirt and throwing it to wherever it happened to land. He faintly heard the clink of his dog tags against his chest, but ignored them in favour of stealing another kiss from Elizabeth. Bare chest against bare chest he couldn’t help but shift slightly to feel her hardened nipples against his skin.

John moved away, again placing a kiss on her chest before sliding off the end of the bed and shoving his boxer shorts down to the ground. He moved back to the bed, stepping out of his shorts at the same time and once more leaned in for a longer and more passionate kiss.

“Hey beautiful,” John said softly, pulling back from the kiss, but keeping himself in place. “Wouldn’t happen to have a condom, would you?”

“Would you stop if I said no?”

“No, but don't we need protection?”

“Would you stop if I said no to that too?” she said a little bit of caution in her voice.

John watched her, taking in the lines of her face, the flush of her cheeks and the spark in her green eyes. She’d dream of him, dreamed of Bethan and Josiah and had admitted she felt as though she’d lived their life, had their relationship and children and most of all, she’d said he was a lot like Josiah.

“You want to have children with me?” he asked, not completely sure he knew what she was saying or why he felt perfectly fine with the idea.

“It feels right to me,” she breathed. “But we can stop if you want.”

John hesitated. It felt right to him too, felt as though they should have been doing this a long time ago. If he was honest, he’d felt as though he’d been in a relationship this close to Elizabeth from the first day he met her. All their teasing, all the slight touches, all the times he’d wanted to protect her, killed for her and wanted to just pull her close and hold her until the loneliness went away.

Reaching down, John adjusted himself, positioning the head of his cock at her entrance and pushed in slowly, careful not to hurt her. The sensation was almost overwhelming, hot tight velvet wrapping around him smoothly. He had to stop half way and take a few deep breaths to calm himself before he continued to the hilt. He leaned in close to her, biting gently against her shoulder and soothing the patch with his tongue as though he was apologising for the action.

“Oh god,” Elizabeth breathed, her voice was tight with the effort and her breathing came in gasps. He could feel her body contracting around him, she was close, really close, but then again so was he and he wondered just how long he’d manage to last before it was all over. He pulled back slowly, feeling her tighten on him as though she was trying to pull him back and started to thrust against her in a slow painfully languid rhythm.

“Damn you feel so good,” he husked against her shoulder as he moved one hand down to her thigh and pulled her knee up over his hip. He felt her gasp and she tightened around him, blissfully trying hard to hold onto the edge of her orgasm. He sped up, thrusting long and hard into her, there was no way they were going to last this time and they both knew it.

Elizabeth began to whimper, her hands holding tight to his shoulders, digging in before she seemed to realise and forced her grip to loosen and tucked one hand under his arm to flatten out on his back, urging him to move faster. He complied, shifting just slightly and changing the angle inside her and he forced his eyes to fix on her face a split second before her body shuddered and her orgasm flooded her system. He watched her, still thrusting against her to draw out the sensation, his movements become shorter, faster and more erratic and just as Elizabeth went limp he pushed in as deep as he could and came.

John dropped his head to her neck, forehead against her ear and face taking in the wonderful smell of her overheated body. He waited for her, listening to her pants and feeling the ebbing tide of her orgasm on his depleting length, his mind curious to know if her heart was racing just as fast as his. He puffed out a long breath before he moved, pulling out of her body and dropping onto the bed beside her. He reached over, pulled her up close to him, wrapping his arms around her and pulled the covers back over them.

“So,” he said placing a kiss on the top of her head. “Was I better than the dreams?” Elizabeth just giggled at him and sighed.

~~**~~

John jerked awake as the bed shifted next to him, Elizabeth fidgeted and for a moment he could have sworn she’d just climbed back into the bed. He turned to look at her, watching to see if she’d fidget with the pillows like she usually did when getting comfortable, but it didn’t come and he watched as she let out a soft sigh, fast asleep again whatever had happened.

It had been a few months now, since she’d been released from the infirmary and the discovery of her only being able to sleep with him there and it still perplexed him that one night away would give her dreams that had almost killed her at one point. Heightmeyer had been sceptical for a good month more before John returned to active duty. The first time he’d been gone over night hadn’t help to prove it; Elizabeth had stayed up all night, subsequently driving the night staff crazy trying to talk her into getting some rest. It was the second, unexpected over night stay that tipped the balance and proved his reasoning.

He had been due back late anyway and knew Elizabeth would wait up for him. He’d told her to wait in her room, ready for bed (or naked if she preferred) and he’d come to her when he was back. But he hadn’t come back and she’d fallen asleep. He’d found her the next morning sitting curled up in the corner of her room almost as though she was afraid of the bed, tears streaking down her face. She’d told him about how she’d watched Josiah, from a distance beg her not to leave him, tell her he loved her and how she’d felt empty inside. After that he’d had to talk her into the bed every night and promised himself he’d never get trapped off world again.

“Elizabeth,” he breathed carefully. “You alright?”

“Hmmm,” she replied and shifted in the bed.

“Do you love me?”

“Hmmm.”

He chuckled. He’d done that a couple of times over the last few weeks, asking her questions while she was sleeping. Then again, he’d woken up the same way each time, thinking she’d just climbed back into bed. His brow creased and he sat up to study her a little more, considering the things he’d noticed and ignored over the last few months. Even in the moon light she looked pale, he’d noticed that weeks ago - about the same time he’d noticed her appetite had changed. She ate less and some things, that he knew she liked, seemed to turn her off the food.

Reaching out, John ran his hand down from her shoulder, following the curve of her arm down until it dropped off her side to her stomach. His hand drifted down her side to her hip, it didn’t feel different to him, her waist dipped like normal, if not a little more squeezable than before, which he put down to her eating properly for a change. He let his fingers drip over to her stomach, still flat and beautifully curved as always.

He let out a soft hum and dropped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. They’d grown closer over the last four months too, after their first night together John had arranged for a picnic dinner on one of the piers and had carefully turned the conversation into a discussion about their relationship, how to deal with it, keep their professional edge and where they wanted to take it. Elizabeth had shaken when she told him she didn’t want to lose him, she’d been the first to say she loved him, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and have a family. She’d barely managed to joke about it not being just because he kept the dream monsters away.

She’d returned to work shortly after that, agreeing that they would continue to be professional in public and would keep their relationship in their rooms – and perhaps a little in the mess hall at dinner. After the first few days back, the rumours picked up and only the absence of a trip back home had kept the ‘their married’ rumours from spreading like wildfire. John didn’t care; he had then and would always ignore rumours. He didn’t need to listen to the speculations when he was living the real thing.

Every week, especially in the beginning, Carson had insisted on seeing Elizabeth in one way or another. They carefully waited a few weeks before John went with her to one appointment and Carson found out what was true and what was just conjecture about them.

Shifting carefully, John slid out of the bed and headed for the bathroom, the need to pee now a little heavy on his bladder and he blinked into the light, cursing the auto illumination of the city and dropped his eyes to the floor. His eye caught on something in the trash, dropped almost completely down the back was something white amongst the blue and green boxes of fresh soap and tissue cartons. He finished and flushed the toilet before reaching down and pulling the white box from the can and almost dropped it again in shock as he caught sight of the front of a pregnancy test kit.

For a moment he was caught between shock and fear before excitement started to overwrite them. His fingers clutched the box and he realised that he held onto the possibility that he was going to become someone’s father. They’d meant for it to happen, though he had thought it would take longer, it had only been five months, and sure, she wasn’t that far along yet – or he would have noticed – but it was still too soon. Wasn’t it?

He closed the toilet seat lid quietly and turned to sit on it before looking into the box. The used tester poked out at him, almost daring him to take hold of it and answer the question he’d been considering for the past ten minutes. Was this what she’d gotten up for? Or had she done this test earlier, at some point in their evening and he hadn’t noticed the box until now. Either way she hadn’t said anything to him and that thought alone made his heart sink. Maybe she hadn’t mentioned it because she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe this was her reason for being up in the early hours of the morning.

Swallowing hard, John pulled the test from the box and looked at the result. The blue plus sign was clear, almost too sharp in appearance and even in his still sleep blurry brain he considered that it mean she wasn’t pregnant and he flipped the box to look at the instructions. Minus symbol for negative, plus symbol for positive. His eye brows rose and his brain attempted to take in the actuality of the result, fixing his eyes back on the blue cross on the tester John smiled. Elizabeth was pregnant.

He dropped the test back into the box and shoved it back down the side of the can before he got up and stepped back into the main room. He couldn’t help but stop just inside the bedroom, watching as Elizabeth slept on her side facing him.

How had he become so lucky?

He licked his lips before moving back around the bed and carefully climbing back in behind her, his hand dropping over her side to join hers against her belly. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes before opening them again a moment later.

Why hadn’t she told him? Why hadn’t she even said there was a possibility?

He shoved the questions aside, not really wanting to argue the point with her tomorrow, or ever for that matter and started to consider that he should wait for her to say something. As he drifted off to sleep, his own brain challenged him to say nothing for as long as he possibly could. Even if that was just the ten minutes they spent using the bathroom before getting dressed in the morning.

~~**~~

Elizabeth was standing in front of the window a few nights later when John stepped into the room. She was looking down on the city, the outline of a structure, large and looming, lit up by the lights of used rooms and glowing in the moon light.

“Didn’t expect you to be awake,” he said dropping his things on the desk and kicking off his boots. “You should be sleeping.” He moved over to stand behind her as she considered his words. His hands came to rest on her hips and his chin on her shoulder. “I hadn’t left the city,” he offered, before kissing her neck.

“I didn’t feel like sleeping right now,” she said getting a sense of déjà vu.

“What makes you think I wasn’t going to wake you up?” he asked, his hands moving around to her stomach, massaging lightly as his fingers moved downwards.

“You just said I needed sleep,” she said coyly.

“I could,” he started gathering up the night shirt she was wearing in his hands. “You’re more likely to sleep after this.”

She stopped him with one hand over his, now on the bared skin of her belly and the other against his cheek. Turning slightly she kissed him before pressing herself back against his hips.

“John, I need to tell you something.”

“Oh?” he said grinning against the skin of her neck before he nipped at it. “Before or after I get you in bed?” he asked with no intention of waiting for an answer. Instead, one of his hands slipped down from her stomach and she barely had a moment to contemplate his thinking before talented fingers vanished into the folds of her sex.

Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath and let her head drop back onto his shoulder. He had never expected when he started seeing her that he would be able to bring such a strong reaction about at moments like this. Just five months ago, she was having nightmares that had her wandering all over the city and scaring the life out of everyone. Him most of all.

His finger brushed against her clit as the other hand shifted up her stomach towards her breasts. She squirmed slightly, knowing the touch of his fingers or wet tongue on her nipple would make her moan, they were always so sensitive to his touch – much the same of the rest of her body was to his presence.

“I haven’t told you lately,” he said drawing her from her thoughts, “how much I love you.” She hadn’t noticed his hands moving away from her skin as he spoke, too wrapped up in his words to pay attention to anything else.

“I don’t always need to hear it,” she told him, feeling the material tug at her arms and she raised them so he could remove the shirt. “You show me at least once a day.”

“I still like telling you,” he said and she could feel the coy smile spread against her shoulder. “Especially when it’s followed by you being completely naked.”

“John,” she said with a small groan and stopping him. “I’m pregnant.” Her hands quickly planted on the wall beside the window as John rocked his hips against her backside. He was hard, pressing strongly against the crevice of her buttocks and he swallowed hard at the sensation.

“Don’t move,” he breathed and she felt him step back from her for a moment. The sound of his clothes dropping to the ground around them gave her only a moment to adjust her stance before his naked body pressed against her, hands back on her stomach with his front following the curves of her back. His lips pressed in at her neck and he rubbed himself against her for a moment. “You’re gonna be irresistible. Belly perfectly rounded with my baby.”

He pulled back from her slightly, running his hands down her back, following the curves of her waist with his fingers and drawing back up her spine to make her shiver. He drew her hair back over her shoulder, straightening the slightly curled locks down her back as far as it would go before releasing it and running his hands back up her sides and around to cup her breasts.

“You’re a terrible tease,” she breathed, shuddering as he flicked a finger over her nipples.

“Funny,” he said rocking against her again. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Elizabeth hummed in amusement as he straightened her body before pulling away. She turned to look at him and found him watching her with a loving smile. He took a step forward and she watched him closely as he leaned in and kissed her. She loved the feel of his kisses, just firm enough to feel the pressure, but always so tender and loving like he was pouring the whole of his soul into them. The real John Sheppard’s kisses were just as good Josiah’s in her dreams.

His hand drifted down her arms to take her hands and he pulled back, stepping deliberately to the bed and drawing her with him. She shuddered at the thought of what would come, the feel of him close, the touch of his skin against hers as he slowly made love to her.


	6. Chapter 6

The light in her face was what woke her, it was like someone was shining it directly into her eyes purposely trying to wake her from a brilliant sleep; but it wasn’t quite right. It grew, stronger and brighter for just a moment before it died out completely. The rumble and shaking of the ground below her shuddered up the metal legs of her bed to send a smaller, less intense wave through her body. She opened her eyes, it was dark, almost too dark, the lights from the city didn’t glow through her window and the moons seemed to have vanished.

Sitting up, Elizabeth glanced around the room, it was different, empty. The book she had been reading before bed was gone and as she took in the room she realised nothing was in the right place. It was back to how she had found it upon her arrival. She got up, feeling the soft material flow around her legs and looked down to see a long silk-type dress that hung on thin straps from her shoulders and her protruding stomach. She ran a hand down the soft material just as the rumbling returned and the floor shuddered underneath her.

She moved to the door, her hand activating the sensor easily and paused to watch a group of people rush by. They weren’t her people, they were the ancestors, at least she thought they were. Her mind was screaming at her that this was another dream but every ounce of her body told her it was real and it was right. She turned back to the bed to find it empty, John no longer in it; he’d left her to deal with the nightmares alone.

She turned back to the door and stepped out, quickly being swept along with the moving crowd. The evacuation of the outpost had started; they would be heading for another planet to await the completion of Atlantis. She hadn’t expected the evacuation to come so soon. Even though they were aware of the planets problem she had expected at least a few more months to prepare. Either way, this was the moment that her heart dreaded, regretted and the realisation of it made her pause in the corridor. They were leaving the sick behind, she was leaving Josiah and their boys behind.

Something was off then, it tweaked in her mind that if she was back in Bethan’s mind and body she shouldn’t be pregnant right now. The action made her look down and her hand came up to run over the silk material again. Nothing. Her stomach was completely flat again and a slight tinge of panic set in.

The crowd around her thinned and even as several of the people stopped to check on her, the sense of urgency was overwhelming. She turned back, running the length of the corridor and turned sharply into a transporter to get to the infirmary, she had to say goodbye, she couldn’t just leave him - she loved him.

“Bethan,” the harsh and familiar voice of the doctor rang out before she could reach the isolated areas of the outpost.

“I need to see them,” she said, throwing the comment over her shoulder at him as she continued towards her goal.

“You can’t,” he said and she could hear his footsteps increase so he could catch her. She quickened her own pace, but his hand still managed to grip her tightly and turn her to face him.

“Release me,” she hissed and his hand relaxed instantly. Not even the medical staff had the right to handle her in such a way. “I...”

“Think, Bethan, please. If you go to them, you will have to stay behind as well. Your people need you.”

He was right. She could feel the pains of regret washing over her, just as they had when she realised it had to be done, as it had done when she told her senior staff what they needed to do next. There was no alternative, a danger at their door and a plague in their homes. They needed to save those who had a chance to live.

“They won’t know,” the doctor whispered. “They’re already in the isolation chambers, their bodies will be preserved and the warning is in place never to release them. If we can find a cure, we can come back.” Another flash of light flooded the city and the rumbling shuddered under her bare toes.

“What if there’s nothing to come back to?”

He looked down at the floor and she knew instantly he had considered the same fate. Preserving them was one thing, but if their situation increased the whole outpost would be destroyed and the only fitting thing that would come from that would be their own demise as the plague was released.

“I can’t let you stay, my queen, you are too important. Our survival depends on your guidance.”

She let the pain consume for a flicker of a moment as he spoke, then she turned her back to the medical bays, closed her eyes to send a silent apology to her family and forced her feet to move forwards.

The empty corridors were daunting, almost haunted as she followed them to the gate room, the path so well walked that she could have followed it in the dead of night with no lights and her eyes closed. Her mind felt numb as she stepped into the gate room, the bright light of the open wormhole casting horrible shadows over the floor and she paused only to turn and look up at the control room, before she squared her shoulders and stepped through the gate.

~~**~~

The dialling gate shocked Walker out of his nap, he’d been just slipping into a pleasant relaxation when it started and he instantly dropped his feet to the ground and looked at the computer screen.

“What the...?” he breathed, completely confused.

“What’s going on?” his companion asked. “What did you push?”

“Nothing,” Walker insisted. “I know I’m new at this, but I didn’t touch anything, wasn’t even close. But the gate’s dialling itself.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to do that.”

“That makes two of us,” Walker said. “Some program’s been activated, set to dial at midnight.” He glanced at his clock, midnight was now. “Alarms,” he said and a second later regretted it when the horrid sound of the Atlantis alarms started. Thing was, they were meant for incoming wormholes and this was definitely not an incoming traveller. He stood up and moved to the balcony, watching as the last chevron flicked on and the wormhole emerged.

“This is not a good first night on the job,” his companion said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Walker spat and was about to turn away from the open gate to check the readouts again when movement in the room below caught his attention. “Oh my god,” he breathed.

“That’s Doctor Weir.”

He would have called him the king of the obvious if he wasn’t so confused. How had she known the gate was dialling, there was no way she could have made it from her room so quickly, even if the alarms sounded in the personnel areas. She turned and looked up at him, her eyes looking straight at him but not seeing him and he knew instantly that the rumours about her sleep walking problems were true. She turned away and his gut sank to the floor.

Movement seemed hard, stiff and uncoordinated as he turned sharply from the balcony, sprinted across the control room and almost slipped down the stairs. He tripped at the last few, regaining his footing quickly he lunged forward but knew it was too late. Doctor Weir stepped through the wormhole several paces ahead of him and the gate shut down a split second later.

“Shit,” he shouted and turned without thinking to sprint down the corridor towards the personnel quarters. Colonel Sheppard was going to have his head on a stick for everyone to see.

~~**~~

“Did you touch the computer?” John asked. He couldn’t believe this, he’d slept right through Elizabeth getting up and wandering out of the room, and apparently the city.

“No, sir,” the lieutenant answered.

“Good,” he said just as footsteps on the stairs behind him started and the grouching voice of Rodney came wafting up to invade his already annoyed state of mind.

“... I don’t care if you were told to wake me; there can’t possibly be anything important enough to...”

“Elizabeth went through the gate,” John interrupted. He’d ordered Walker to wake the scientist and not tell him why he had to come to the control room.

“What?”

“She got up; sleep walked here and went through the gate.”

“Two guards on duty couldn’t stop a sleep walking woman? That says a lot for the US military.”

“I didn’t say she came to the control room and dialled,” John said through gritted teeth.

“The gate started to dial itself at midnight,” Walker explained. “We were trying to work out what was going on when I noticed Doctor Weir in the gate room. I tried to stop her, but I wasn’t fast enough.”

“We need to know where she went,” John said and could see the ‘obviously’ comment on Rodney’s face. “Find the address, I’m gonna go wake up Ronon, Teyla and Lorne’s team,” he turned to walk away. Hearing Rodney’s muttered comments he turned back. “One of you will have to get him coffee, or you’ll have to put up with twice as many complaints as normal.”

“I’ll go,” Walker’s companion said quickly and John smiled briefly before turning and jogging off to wake his teams.

~~**~~

The room was dimly lit, the lights flickering in a vain attempt to power on and the stale air infested John’s nostrils with a deep sense of death. He flicked on his P90 light and scanned the room, the others around him doing the same, but no matter where they looked there was no sign of Elizabeth.

“Asuran’s flashback,” Ronon said realising a split second ahead of John that they were in another copy of the gate room. Instantly he swung around to look back at the gate, his light finding a glass window in place and looking very much like the one in the gate room on Atlantis.

“Apparently the program Elizabeth set in place...” John started.

“The one McKay is completely jealous of,” Lorne put in.

“Yeah, that one. Apparently it only lets us dial here and nowhere else at the moment.”

“Okay,” Ronon said. “So where’s here and where’s Weir?”

“What has Elizabeth been dreaming these past few months?” Teyla asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Not the sort of dreams that had her sleep walking to the control room anyway. She hasn’t had one of those since we got stuck off world.”

“Was she always in Atlantis in those dreams?” one of Lorne’s team asked.

“No,” John replied, heading slowly up the stairs towards the control room. “She told me once she was in an outpost before Atlantis was built, that she had started there, set the building of Atlantis in motion and when the plague hit they moved back here to avoid it infecting the new city.”

“So this place is... what? A smaller version of Atlantis?” Lorne asked stopping at the top of the stairs to note the lack of a conference room.

“Something like that.”

John turned into the control room and looked around. It was almost identical to the Atlantis one with the exception of the bridge to Elizabeth’s office. It was gone and instead of one set of stairs heading upwards to the side of the area, he found two. Taking what he hoped was the additional set of stairs, John started slowly up, turning to look back down at Lorne for a moment before he turned the corner at the top and entered an office. It was eerie, finding the same office above them and he moved to the glass wall and looked down over the control and gate rooms.

“The Queen should always be higher than her subjects,” he muttered before turning to examine the room. It was empty, aside from a desk that contained only a small statuette, John picked it up and examined it before stuffing it in his pocket and moving back down the stairs.

“What’s up there?” Ronon asked.

“The equivalent to Elizabeth’s office,” he said. “Only slightly bigger.”

“I take it she’s not up there?” Lorne asked and John shook his head. “Well even if this place is a quarter of the size of Atlantis, it’ll take us days to search it. Where would Doctor Weir go?”

“Firstly,” John said licking his lips and he moved to the back stairway and headed down. “It wouldn’t be Elizabeth in control, I’m starting to think Bethan ascended and she’s messing with us. If that’s the case, Bethan would go looking for her husband and sons.”

“Son _s_?” Lorne questioned putting emphasis on the plural.

“Yep,” John said turning corners sharply. “Bethan’s daughter was the first to become ill and die, her husband and their two boys became ill before they abandoned the outpost.”

“If this is that outpost,” Ronon said and John could tell where he was heading with this before he finished. “Then the plague is here?”

“Carson said the medical files never listed airborne as a transfer method for the plague, only physical contact and water.”

“Right,” Lorne said a little too brightly. “Don’t drink the local water. And we’re now heading for...”

“Infirmary,” John said shortly. “Which is probably where Bethan’s family last were.”

“Anyone else notice that if you take the ‘A’ and ‘N’ off Bethan, you have Beth,” Lieutenant Peters said.

“Your point?” John asked, slowing his pace.

“Beth is short for Elizabeth.”

John stopped and rounded on the man, his mouth open to show his depreciation of the idea, but he paused. The lieutenant was right after all. If that was why this crazy ascended being had picked Elizabeth he’d have a lot to say to the woman. Driving someone else crazy wasn’t enough; she had to pick on someone with a similar name too?

“I think some of us should find a way to switch on the lights around here,” John said. “Might come in handy if she’s not where I think she is.”

“We’ll go,” Lorne said volunteering his team and John nodded. He didn’t turn to continue for the infirmary, his mind still considering the implication of the name. It had to be a coincidence. You don’t pick someone to be your go getter just because they had the same or similar name as you, not unless you’d really lost your marbles.

“John,” Teyla said, drawing his attention back to their search.

“One of you take the main infirmary,” he said to Teyla and Ronon. “The other the isolation rooms on the floor above, I’ll look on this level.”

They nodded and separated with only a glance at each other and John turned to head for the isolation corridor. He moved slowly, listening carefully for noises, signs that she was nearby or in case something else was nearby. He reached up, switching on his radio, the slight buzz told him someone had just finished saying something and he waited to see if there would be a reply.

 _“We’re here,”_ Lorne said. _“There’s only two ZPMs, Hadly’s trying to figure out if they have any juice left in them. What’s your status?”_

“Elizabeth?” John said just above a whisper as the radio went silent.

 _“Just getting to the control room.”_ Peters answered. _“Let us know when you want us to try something.”_

The radio went silent again and John opened the first door to an isolation room and looked around. No sign of anyone, or even that anyone had entered. He pulled back out and looked down the corridor. If they wanted to make sure no one picked up the illness again, they would have marked the doors somehow, he certainty would have. It was a little frightening to open random isolation doors without knowing if someone on the other side was infected.

“Peters,” John said activating his radio.

 _“Sir?”_

“If there’s enough power, dial Atlantis, see if Beckett’s up yet, ask if he wants to come dig through the database for plague info.”

 _“Yes, sir.”_

 _“Sheppard,”_ Ronon said as John started off down the corridor, passing by the isolation rooms. _“She’s not in the main infirmary.”_

“Thanks,” John said. “See if Teyla needs a hand,” he said knowing they would both head for him when they’d run out of places to search.

He turned the corner at the end of the corridor and instantly spotted the difference in the isolation rooms. The ones he’d passed had no markings or distinct signs that warned against the plague, these ones however, had their doors changed. He stepped up to the first and looked in on a woman in her mid thirties who looked extremely pale and ghost-like, he turned around to find a man with white hair to match the shade of his skin and a pleading look in opened eyes.

John moved across slightly, noting that the walls had also been replaced with glass and people lined them, frozen like horrible portraits of death and illness. It was worse than being on a Wraith ship and watching them feed on their prey. Shuddering, John moved off down the hallway, his senses prickled with a feeling of being watched and he paused at the ‘T’ junction and looked to his right. More glass walls and frosty faces greeted him.

“Elizabeth,” he said shining his light as far down as he could possibly see before turning the other way. She was there, standing about halfway down the hallway, her head hung and shoulders shuddering. With a sigh of her name, he moved towards her, dropping his pack to the floor a few steps away and extracted a blanket and wrapped it around her. “Are you okay?” he asked. Elizabeth sniffed but nodded. He pulled her close, turning her away from the glass wall she had been facing and hugged her tightly.

He looked up just as the lights around him turned on, the corridor was flooded with the brightness and John found himself looking through the glass wall at a man who he had no doubt was Josiah Shand. Dark unruly hair stuck up all over the place above a hardened face that looked very much like his own, if not a little green around the gills and very, very pallid. He finally understood what Elizabeth had meant when she said Josiah looked a lot like him.

 _“Sir,”_ Peters’ voice came over the radio. _“You really need to see this.”_ John reached up, not really taking in what the man said, and switched on his radio.

“I found Elizabeth; we’re heading back to the control room.” He turned her away from Josiah, but she paused and then pulled away from him.

“I left him here,” she whispered.

“You didn’t leave anyone here,” John said. “You’ve never been here before.”

“It feels like I was born here, that I belong here,” she said. “It feels right here.” Her head dropped and he knew she was finding it just as confusing as he was. “He’s Josiah,” she said and he resisted the urge to reply with a slightly too sarcastic ‘I guessed that’. He was saved when Elizabeth turned around and he watched as she swallowed several times and her hand reached out towards glass window. John finally looked at the two boys on the other side. Twin boys, similarly dressed and about four or five years old. “Their boys,” she said and he knew she’d wanted to say ‘my’ instead of ‘their’. “Thuran and Tiam,” she said and instantly the tears slipped down her cheeks. “They were four years old,” she choked out and John was there instantly, his arms tight around her again and he let her cry for a moment.

“Sheppard?” Ronon’s voice was uncharacteristically soft and John turned his head to see him and Teyla standing at the junction in the corridor.

John reached around, holding out his P90 and indicated quietly to his bag. Ronon moved forward, grabbing the bag before reaching for the gun then they both turned and moved back down the hallway.

“Come on,” he said. “This isn’t our home, it was theirs. And the last thing you need while five months pregnant is the plague.” That was a horrible joke to make, but it was out before he could stop it. Bethan had been pregnant when she’d come in contact with the illness and Elizabeth was well aware of that fact, probably more so than he ever would be.

He found Teyla and Ronon waiting just outside the isolation area, Teyla was just tying up John’s bag and a pair of slippers sat on the floor beside her. She pushed them towards him and John made sure Elizabeth put them on before they carried on back to the control room. She’d walked through the slightly warm floors in Atlantis in bare feet, but there had been no power in this city when they arrived and he had a good idea that the floors would be absolutely freezing by now.

“Sir,” Peters said when they stepped back into the control room. He waited as John eased Elizabeth into a chair and turned to him. “I take back my comment about the name coincidence.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, just a little irked at the comment.

“I think you should go have another look in that office,” he said indicating the one above them. Elizabeth looked up at the room before he did and his brow quirked at the idea.

“Stay here,” he ordered Peters and left Elizabeth to take the stairs two at a time with Ronon and Teyla behind him. He stepped into the office and froze. On the wall, directly opposite the door was a painting.

“Wow,” Ronon said, to his left. “That’s...”

“Amazing,” Teyla filled in.

“Not the word I was looking for,” Ronon said.

“Freaky,” John offered.

“How can she look so much like Elizabeth?” Teyla asked.

It was a very good question, but it was one of many floating around his head. There was no coincidence involved in whatever was going on. Elizabeth had been Bethan, or at the very least descended from her. He had been Josiah and it would seem fate was playing a hand in them being together. If the family painted in the portrait in front of him was anything to go by then Elizabeth was currently carrying their daughter and in three years time, twin boys would follow. In the family on the wall, the boys were new born, cradled in their parents’ arms while a three year old Jenna stood between the seated adults, a huge grin on her face as though the person painting them had made her laugh.

“Oh my god,” Elizabeth’s voice made him jump and he turned to find her, still wrapped in the blanket, staring up at the painting. She stepped passed them and up close to the painting, reaching up to touch the side of Jenna’s face. Instantly John turned to Teyla and indicated that they should leave and just as they turned from the room, the gate began to dial in.

He ignored it, knowing it could only be Atlantis, probably Beckett coming to check out the infirmary and medical notes. Instead, John moved forward, stopping just behind Elizabeth and wrapping his hands around her to rest on her belly. The slight raise of their child had made itself known a few weeks ago and at that point they’d abandoned any pretence of hiding what their relationship had become.

“We should go back to Atlantis, make sure we don’t end up with their fate.”

Elizabeth nodded and turned to him, wrapping her arms around him. John shifted, moving them over to the window to look down on their people. It felt weird, knowing that Bethan had stood here and done exactly the same thing, her eyes following people in through the gate as they watched Carson and a few other medical personnel step through, full hazard gear on and a few cartons of supplies between them.

Pushing away the fear that it was already too late to save the baby from the same horrible future that Jenna had suffered, John began to run small circles around Elizabeth’s back and he felt her sigh against him as Lorne and the others moved down to help the doctor.


	7. Chapter 7

John was sitting with Elizabeth on the stairs in the Gate room when Carson returned with Teyla from the infirmary and isolation areas. She had shifted close to him and he’d taken to holding onto her afraid she would start shifting away if he didn’t show her he was still there. Her head remained on his shoulder as Carson approached and he considered that she’d fallen asleep.

“That’s pretty gruesome,” Carson said.

“I was more inclined to say horrific. Anything useable out there?”

“Medical bay is pretty much the same as Atlantis, only about half the size. I’m not completely sure I want to move everyone down there, I think it would be better to stay together for now, at least until I know what’s going on.”

“When can we go back to Atlantis?”

“At the moment, you can’t,” Carson said. John could hear the disapproval in his voice; he should have waited for him to get up before coming here. But they took this risk every day, stepping onto another planet into who knew what situation, they had no idea what was going on here. John knew Carson’s choice to come in full containment gear had spawned from Lorne’s report back to Atlantis about where they were. “If everyone is healthy and there’s nothing airborne here then we can go back in containment and I’ll keep an eye on everyone for a few days. Otherwise, you’re all staying put.”

Elizabeth’s head rose up at that and he swallowed hoping she wasn’t about to take a swift mood switch from calm and relaxed into hyper and panicked.

“What do you need?” Elizabeth asked her voice still calm.

“Blood sample from everyone and access to this outpost’s database.” She nodded and almost as though she sensed Carson’s next words she moved to get up.

“You first,” the doctor said and John had to smile, the choice was inevitable, she’d been here longest and she was pregnant.

~~**~~

Elizabeth looked around the room, Lorne’s team were sitting at one of the consoles in the control room, attempting to link up a laptop from Rodney’s instructions through an open wormhole. Carson and several of the medics were setting up the lab in the gate room, just to the left of the gate. Two of the nurses were taking the last of the samples from John and Teyla.

The room around her was too familiar, almost as though she had been Bethan, young and highly respected. She could pick out the aspects of the room that had made it to Atlantis and a niggling in the back of her mind threatening to explain the reasoning behind some of the changes. She moved along the back of the room, a strange sense drawing her to the corner behind the stairs and as she stepped into the alcove a door opened to her left and she stepped out into the fresh and hot sun.

Differences between this planet and the one Atlantis lived on flooded her brain. The outpost was on an island, built into the mountainous terrain, she could see windows in the side of the rock face to her left and the ocean just beyond it. There was water in every direction and she knew, without being able to see it, that there was a land bridge on the east side of the island. Impassable early in the morning and late at night, the bridge went to a similar, mountainous island that was the only pier the outpost had. In the distance, she could make out another island, one of twelve the planet had, including the one she was on. It was there, on that island, alone with Josiah that Bethan had become pregnant with their twin boys.

“South side beach,” she whispered.

“Wow,” Lorne said, causing her to jump and swing around to face him. “Sorry. Figured Sheppard would have everyone’s head if you were alone out here.”

“He can be a little overprotective sometimes.”

“What some men won’t do to protect the people they love,” he said and she smiled at him before turning back to the view.

“Thule,” she said suddenly. “This outpost was called Thule.”

“Did you see that written somewhere?” Lorne asked. Elizabeth just shook her head and she knew he’d quirked a brow at her.

“That island over there is one of the largest on the planet; the biggest is actually on the other side of the world from here.”

“Australia,” Lorne said. “So that would be...”

“That would be more like Malta, close enough to see from Gozo where we’re standing on. We’re a lot smaller than you think.”

“Cool,” he said turning as John stepped out to join them.

“There’s an island,” she said turning around to put her back to the planet’s version of England and facing John, “on the other side that has a land bridge over to here. They built a pier on it,” she turned to Lorne with a smile. “With real boats.”

“Please tell me we get to explore while we’re here,” Lorne asked, almost begging for permission.

“You have to ask the Doc,” John said. Lorne grinned before turning to Elizabeth.

“Excuse me, Doctor Weir; I have another Doctor to annoy.” She chuckled as he moved away and then lifted a brow at John.

“Something on your mind?”

“Just a strange feeling that I’ve been here before,” he said moving closer and placing his hand on her belly. He paused almost instantly and looked around him. “Did Bethan meet Josiah here?”

Elizabeth’s other brow went up at the question and she nodded. She hadn’t told him that, she hadn’t told anyone that.

“She hated him,” he said shocking her a little more.

“She hated all of them, despised the fact that she was forced to pick from a group of horrible boys her parents approved of.”

“I wasn’t that bad as a kid. Either way, I won your heart,” he said and then paused before adding. “Twice.”

“I bet you were just like Josiah, smug, convinced you could win any woman’s heart.”

“How young are we talking?” John asked. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t start thinking that way until I was fourteen.” Elizabeth laughed at him.

~~**~~

He didn’t honestly know where he was going. After Carson had said yes to exploring and imposing a few rules, Lorne and his team had vanished into the halls in pairs. Ronon and Teyla followed just before John had decided he wanted to go. Elizabeth had gone along wearily and he knew she hadn’t wanted to relive the memories she’d been dreaming over the last several months, but she’d agreed when John had promised to come back with her if she wanted to stop.

Now though, he was navigating the hallways as though he’d been here for hundreds of years and knew the slightly altered layout like the back of his hand. The thing he couldn’t really explain was why he was going in this particular direction, there was something this way, something he needed to see again and remind Elizabeth of.

“I hope you remember the way back,” she said as he paused to think about which way to go. “I’m not showing you.”

“Trust me,” he said before starting off in one direction and suddenly turning into a room.

He smiled, finding himself in the entry room to something grander and paused only for a moment to take in the desk on one side and the dead flowers on either side of the stair case. Tugging Elizabeth closer, John kissed her cheek before guiding her up the stairs, almost exactly as Josiah’s brother had done on one particular moment in their past. Not sure how he knew that, or that Josiah’s brother, Ranash had been nervous beyond belief about touching the Queen so intimately, John followed the curve of the stairs up and around until they emerged in a large room at the top of the tower.

The walls of the tower had been completely replaced with slightly cream coloured glass. The sun beamed in through them, bathing the room in a brilliant whiteness and cooling the atmosphere. Filled with people the room would have been just the right temperature for a party and he knew at the back of his mind that some of the windows tilted out to let more air in. One hand around Elizabeth’s waist, the other holding her hand across his chest, John moved forward through the center of the hall towards a raised platform at the other end, the place where, in his memory, a priest had stood waiting with him.

“Remind you of anything?” John asked and he could see the confusion on her face.

“How do you know about this place?”

“I honestly don’t know. I just know...” He stopped at the platform and turned her to face him. “Bethan and Josiah were married right here.”

Elizabeth looked away and he caught the flicker of fear on her features. He knew he shouldn’t be remembering anything, where they first met, where they were married, hell he could remember where their room was before they’d had Jenna and even the room after Jenna was born. If he was honest, the thought of Jenna’s birth tingled at the back of his brain, yet he couldn’t remember them as though he’d lived in them, more like he’d been a frequent visitor.

“I know I shouldn’t know and we can figure out why later,” he said, turning her attention back to him with a slight tilt of her chin. “You’ve dreamed of all the horrible things in Bethan’s life, I wanted you to think of something wonderful.” Elizabeth smiled at him.

“Josiah’s brothers, Ranash and Phelton hadn’t been picked as a consort to me because they were too young,” she said. “Phelton died in the same accident that killed Bethan’s parents, he was on the other Jumper while Ranash had stayed in Thule to learn to be a doctor.” She paused and turned back to the stairway they had come up. “When she stepped in, he had been so nervous he’d tripped over his own feet. Faced with a queen he’d grown to call Lady Bethan and taught to keep two paces away from, he’d found it extremely uncomfortable to hold her and guide her up the stairs.” She laughed at the memory and turned back to him. “Bethan kissed him on the cheek and promised him she was too nervous to think of punishments. Why did you bring me here? Why this memory?”

“I want to replace it,” he said and watched as Elizabeth’s left brow rose.

He took a step towards her, took her hand and pulled back to stand in front of the podium. His own nerves kicked in and he licked his lips before he leaned forwards and kissed her gently. The rush of emotion was shocking and unlike anything he’d felt for her in the past and suddenly he understood what she’d meant when she’d said it felt right here, like the home she was born into. He pulled back, took half a step away and, keeping his eyes fixed on hers, lowered himself down to one knee. The shock on Elizabeth’s face burned into his brain, he locked it away quickly before it dissolved into realisation and he knew she’d fight off the need to cry.

“Elizabeth,” he breathed and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as he dipped his hand into his pocket to pull out the ring. “Will you marry me?” A mountain of emotion flickered over her face before she bit on her lower lip and a single tear slid down her cheek. She nodded slowly and took a deep breath before finally managing a vocal answer.

“Yes.”

He took her hand and slipped the ring on, thankful for the fact that it fit and stood straight into her embrace and a small smattering of applause. He kept Elizabeth close as he turned to see Lorne and Peters standing at the top of the stairs. The two men turned and vanished back down the stairs without hesitation and John reluctantly separated from Elizabeth.

“Where did you get a ring?” she asked looking down at the white gold band.

“Erm. Well that one belongs to Lieutenant Peters, I borrowed it, but I will get you one later. You get to look after it the whole time we’re here though.”

Elizabeth smiled at him and leaned in to kiss him before looking around the room. After a few minutes examination, she pulled John over to one side and looked down. Below them, the small structure spread out wide, he knew they stood at the top of the tallest tower in Thule and that it stood to one side of the island. They could see the tower with the control and gate rooms a slight distance away and several floors below them and off in the distance, still clearly in sight was the land bridge and pier that had been built on the next island. John picked out the half sunken remains of a ship as he wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, his hands resting on their unborn baby and he sighed. This felt just as comfortable as it would have in Atlantis.

~~**~~

“Should we be going back down?” Elizabeth asked, she didn’t really expect an answer from John and secretly hoped he wouldn’t provide one. She was comfortable, leaning against him in the middle of the room while he leaned back against the podium.

“Lorne knows where we are if they need us,” John said, shifting against the wooden block and wrapping himself tighter around her.

They’d sat down so they could look out over the island structure. It had been built into the island itself, the lower decks of the building integrated into the mountain side. When they’d first got comfortable on the floor, Elizabeth had sat beside him, curled her knees up close to her body – or as close as her stomach would allow – and pressed into John’s side. But John hadn’t been happy with that, he’d moved her to sit between his legs, wrapping his arms around her and placed his hands on her stomach. She knew he was waiting for the movement, the first time their baby moved or kicked so he could feel it.

“I don’t know what it is about this place,” John said with a sigh and buried his face against her neck for a moment. “It’s weird and comfortable at the same time.”

“Like your childhood home when you go back for a visit. Same building, same rooms but different furniture.”

“Something like that.” John shifted again and Elizabeth began to wonder if his backside was going numb. “Maybe it’s just you.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, a witty reply sitting on the tip of her tongue. The low rumbling stopped her, a low growl seemed to pass by the tower and fade into nothing. Her brow creased and she felt John move behind her, reaching for his gun which he’d set down a few inches away from them. The rumble came again, slightly louder this time and lasting just a little longer.

“What the...?” John questioned getting up onto his knees behind her.

Elizabeth stayed where she was, watching out over the horizon and the rest of the city. The sound was shockingly familiar and sparked a small amount of panic in her brain. She moved forward slightly, up onto her knees and watched the window ahead of her while her brain furiously tried to remember what it was on this planet that rumbled.

“Oh no,” she whispered when the memory surfaced.

Ahead of her the city seemed to reverberate, shaking slowly, rocking from side to side as the low rumble started again and quickly increased. The floor started to shake and she felt John’s hand grip tight on her shoulder as the vibration increased. The windows rattled in their frames, the few things standing in corners around the room started to tilt dangerously before finally dropping to the ground and hanging light figures above them clanked together. Elizabeth jumped as one of the lights crashed to the ground to their right, she dropped forwards, resting one hand on the floor and the other over her stomach as the earthquake increased again.

“Down,” John shouted before forcing her to the ground and laying over her, covering as much of her body as he could just as the windows shattered and shards of glass flew in towards the centre of the room.

She had just a moment of the city under her chest and stomach before everything came to stand still and all that was left was the bitter wind of their altitude. She raised her head, looking around the room, glass covered every surface and objects that had once stood around the room were now on their sides and had drifted from their places.

“Now we should go back,” John said and she looked up at him to find him looking in the other direction. She turned to find a void in the floor not far from where they were. The tower had split, gaping open almost right through the centre of the room.

Shakily, Elizabeth got to her feet. She could feel John’s eyes on her and she turned to give him a small smile to show she was fine. She could feel her hands shaking and a small pang of pain in her right arm that she didn’t dare look at just yet. They turned towards the stairs to the room and slowly made their way over to them.

“Wait,” John said stopping her at the top. “I’ll go down first, make sure they’re still safe.”

“And if they’re not?”

“Well at least you and the baby will be fine,” he said, then unhooked his radio pack and ear peace and handed it to her. “And you can call for help.” He gave her a quick kiss before he started slowly down the stairs. She saw him pause about half way down, just around the curve and look back up at her. “Come down to here,” he said. Elizabeth hooked the radio pack onto her pyjama bottoms and draped the ear piece over her shoulder before moving carefully down the stairs to John.

“That could be a problem,” she said looking down at the space where the second half of the stairs should have been. John took the ear piece off her shoulder and stuck it back in his ear.

 _“Colonel? Colonel, come in,”_ Lorne sounded a little frantic.

“This is Sheppard,” he said almost nonchalantly. “What’s up?”

 _“I’d love to know where you were if you didn’t feel that earthquake. We’re gathering back in the gate room. Where are you and Doctor Weir?”_

“Same place we were when you last saw us, only with a slight problem.”

“Slight?” Elizabeth said with a quirked brow.

 _“What’s the problem?”_

“Half the stairwell is missing, we can’t get down.”

 _“We’re on our way,”_ Lorne said.

John turned back to her and smiled. “They’re coming,” he said. “You okay?” he asked after a minute of silence.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just a little shaken.”

“I think we’re all a little shaken,” he said with a smirk. She chuckled at him and watched as he did a quick scan of her body for injury. When he reached out she wasn’t prepared for the sharp stab of pain that went with his hand on her arm. “You’re bleeding,” he said lifting her arm just a little.

“Yeah,” she said looking down at it. “So are you,” she said poking him at the side of the face. John winced.

“I think yours is worse,” John said carefully moving the sleeve of her pyjama top. She screwed up her face at the open wound. Several bits of glass had joined the larger piece which had opened a nice long gash in her arm.

“Sir,” Lorne said appearing at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Where’s Beckett?” John asked.

“Gate room, we had a few minor injuries. The power’s out as well, Peters is checking that out.”

“Find something to stand on, put it underneath us.”

“Yes, sir,” Lorne said and started directing people to clear up space underneath them. Elizabeth watched for a while, aware that John was checking her for other injuries.

When they’d cleared enough space, they moved the desk from under the stairs out and Ronon and Lorne climbed on top. For the first time all day, Elizabeth began to wish she was dressed and not clad only in her night clothes. Being handed down to two people would have been embarrassing enough without the fact that she had no bra on and the top she wore slid up far too easily. Taking a deep breath, she let John guide her into position and, checking her top, let him hook his hands under her arms and lower her down.

She felt their hands on her knees first, guiding her down and slowly taking her weight between them. Lorne’s other hand caught hold of her arm as John released it, but Ronon grabbed at her side and she had to gasp at the contact of his cold fingers on her bared skin. She took hold of Ronon’s shoulder as they lowered her to the desk and let Sergeant Hadly help her to the ground before she looked around. The lower level of the room was just as messy as the floor above, with the added bonus of having stairs all over the place. John landed with a thump on the desk and dropped just as heavily to the ground next to her before they started back towards the gate room.

As they approached the gate room a low rumble made them stop and Elizabeth instinctively turned towards John. The floor beneath her shook almost violently for a second before it stopped and silence kicked in. There was something about the quakes that were scaring the crap out of her, she’d been in earthquakes before, survived a bad one during one negotiation and still managed to keep her head on straight and help out. But this one was different. This one came with alarm bells, sirens and flashing red lights.

“Everyone alright?” Carson asked; approaching the second they stepped into the room. She could see the moment he saw her arm and she was quickly separated from the group.

She was sitting, watching a nurse clean up the cut on the side of John’s face, with Carson at her right side carefully extracting bits of glass when Teyla dropped down in the seat next to her and the rest of the two teams gathered around. She knew what was coming before they even got comfortable.

“Can we possibly move this quarantine back to Atlantis?” Lorne asked, wording his sentence carefully and keeping his tone even.

“I don’t think it would be safe just yet,” Carson said dropping another blood stained bit of glass into the tray. “We could end up taking the virus back with us.”

“Not if we follow containment protocol,” Peters put in. “They were put in for a reason and it’s not exactly safe for us here.”

“I believe these quakes happen regularly.” Teyla’s matter of fact tone made Elizabeth shiver and she looked around for something to occupy her mind. “There were already cracks in the floors of the structure when we arrived.”

“Where?” John asked. Elizabeth was already trying to picture a gap in the floor that had been created before the quake they just had.

“In the isolation area,” she said, “there was one that led into another room above where Elizabeth was found.”

“Oh good god,” Carson said. Elizabeth turned to find a look of horror on the doctor’s face through the containment suit.

“There were no chambers on the upper floor,” Teyla added cautiously. Elizabeth’s heart sank almost instantly. There were no cracks in the floor of the celebration room when she and John had first entered it, yet when they left; there was a gap you’d have to take a run at to jump over.

“That quake could have compromised the containment rooms,” she said. “If any of them are breached, we’re not going anywhere.”

“We need to check them again,” John said.

“Aye,” Carson said. “All of them. Even the ones in the other three medical units this base has. We can’t be sure that the main infirmary is the only place they isolated the sick.”

Elizabeth winced. Not sure if it was from the idea of what they were about to do or if Carson had wrapped the bandage a little too tight.

“Okay,” John said. “Doc, get those test results done, fast. We’re splitting into teams of two, pick a medical unit and check it out.”

“There are only seven of you,” Elizabeth pointed out and watched in slight amusement as John did a mental count of his people. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

“You will do no such thing,” John said. “If there’s a problem you’re staying as far away from the infirmaries as possible.”

“If there’s a breach,” she said pointedly getting to her feet. “It won’t matter if I’m standing in the infirmary or on the other side of the planet.”

“She’s got you there,” Ronon said smugly.

“Elizabeth...”

“No,” she protested. “I put everyone in this situation; I should have just stayed in the infirmary, strapped to a bed.”

“For the rest of your life?”

“If I needed to, yes.” She stood staring at him, daring him to question or answer back. “We’re checking the main infirmary,” she told him and continued to stare him down.

John’s shoulders slumped, he knew just as well as the others that the conversation was over. There was no military matter involved here and he had no right taking over the orders, even if he thought she was being completely insane. They had stopped hiding their relationship months ago, not long after they found out she was pregnant, but she had never and would never let him, or even herself, put their relationship before the mission and the safety of the team.

“Okay then,” John said, knowing the battle was over and there was no point holding the grudge. “Let’s get this over with.”


	8. Chapter 8

John purposely took Elizabeth to the upper level of the infirmary to hold off her coming into direct contact with anything that could pass on the plague. He didn’t want her in the area at all but had learned over the last few months or so that she, if not both of them, needed to keep their authority in public and most of all in situations like this. Sure, he had wanted to argue, he always did and his instinct was to protect her at all costs. But he knew he couldn’t force her to stay behind and if they wanted their relationship to work he needed to know when to back down.

This situation, though, scared him more than anything. One wrong move and he could lose her, or the baby, or worse yet – both of them and any one of those possibilities was not acceptable. Though he had to admit what had happened to Bethan all those years ago frightened him just as much. For him to die and leave her to look after a baby alone – especially if history was going to repeat itself – was daunting and he couldn’t fight off the sense that he’d lived this life before.

They turned the corner at the end of the corridor and stopped. John’s brow rose as he took in the gap that ran the length of the next hallways, the cracks and bows in the metal walls.

“Well,” John said. “Either Teyla was underplaying the damage up here, or that quake did some serious reconstruction.”

“This is right above Josiah and the boys,” Elizabeth said. John watched her for a moment, eyes on the floor as though she could see into the rooms below.

Clearing his throat, John moved forwards and looked down into the space below. At first he thought there was nothing, but just as he was ready to turn away he caught sight of what looked like a hand. He turned, jumping slightly at how close Elizabeth was, and moved back towards the stairs. He could hear her behind him as he took the stairs two at a time and turned into the lower isolation corridor. Another giant gash in the floor greeted him and mindful that Elizabeth was following him, he navigated it to the ‘T’ junction.

“Oh... Crap!” He breathed. He’d turned to the spot he’d found Elizabeth at earlier and was presented with a horrific and blood churning sight.

All the chambers in this section of the corridor had been opened or crushed and he had already noticed the destroyed area where Bethan’s boys had been. Movement at his side had him turning and he realised too late that Elizabeth was making her way towards Josiah. His heart leapt when he saw the man move, still alive amongst the dead and reaching for John’s pregnant fiance.

“Carson,” John said activating his radio.

“It worked,” John heard Josiah breathe as Elizabeth reached him.

“We have a serious containment breach here. At least one of these people is still alive.”

 _”On my way,”_ Carson replied.

“It worked,” Josiah repeated as Elizabeth crouched down beside him. “You came.”

“What worked?” John asked stepping closer and feeling the hand of a very thin woman around his ankle. He watched her for a moment as she struggled to breathe and found himself wishing for the first time ever that he knew more than how to stick a bandage on a cut.

“The dreams,” Josiah said, taking a deep wheezing breath. “I wasn’t sure they could be retrieved, it has taken me years to find where they placed Bethan’s soul.”

“Placed her soul?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t understand.”

One withered hand reached up and John watched as Josiah ran a finger down the side of Elizabeth’s face. The look on his face reminded him just how Elizabeth looked at him, loving and caring, with a touch of fear that one day it would all be gone. He was sure he gave her that look more than she gave it to him.

“You look so much like her,” he said. “Your eyes are what drew me to you, what drew me to her.”

The hand around John’s ankle relaxed and he looked down at the now dead woman, she reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t quite place her face. Carson turned the corner at the junction and John heard the breathed “oh god” he let out through the contamination suit.

“Our souls are recycled.” Josiah coughed hard as Carson settled beside him and began to examine him. “They started doing it shortly after my ancestors learned what ascension was, when they discovered our souls just lingered - trapped between our ascended selves and our dead bodies.” He winced and Carson apologised.

John moved back a step and turned to look into the desolated room of the twin boys. It was horrible sight, even though he couldn’t make out the difference between the destroyed room and the two five year old boys. He prayed they were wrong about the plague, that all these years later it had died in the bodies of these people, starved of nutrition and oxygen. He would pray hard for that if only to keep Elizabeth safe.

“Passing them on to a new life and hoping the memories and knowledge would continue or pass forwards,” Josiah continued, stopping every few words to cough. “It didn’t seem to always work. Then there were the few, over time that would gain the memories the more often they were recycled.” He stopped to take another deep breath as Carson listened to his heart. “Like you, both of you,” he said turning to look at John for the first time and raising a brow.

“I have a recycled soul?” John asked and nervously licked his lips.

“Yes, most people do,” Josiah said as John watched Carson shake his head at Elizabeth. He watched the tears slip down her cheek silently before Josiah continued. “Though you were probably selected carefully because of our status. The memories are there, buried deep in your subconscious.” He stopped to cough again. “I tapped into what I hoped were yours,” he said turning back to Elizabeth, “surfaced the dreams to show you what had happened to us, how our population was depleted so horribly and where it had started. I didn’t want to force the pain on you,” he said with a cough, “but I knew that the quakes here would soon destroy the city and virus would be released.”

“So why bring us here? To make us suffer like you did? So we can watch our baby die?”

“No,” Josiah said his breathing extremely laboured and the coughing started to grate more at his throat. “You are the cure,” he said more to Elizabeth than him. “We were too late in finding it, but together, you are the cure. You can stop it from spreading from the city out across the galaxy.”

“How?” Carson asked. “What’s so special about them?”

“Their combined,” Josiah started. He couldn’t finish, the coughing became too much and eventually his breathing was reduced to a few ragged breaths. “Just,” he managed to breathe, his eyes fixed on Elizabeth, “as beautiful as Bethan,” he managed before he went completely limp.

Elizabeth pushed back instantly, pressing her back against the cracked wall behind her and her eyes fixed on the now dead body of the man responsible for her dreams and relationship with John. John moved around him quickly and carefully touched her shoulder to get her attention; the pain in her eyes when she turned to him reminded him of how she had been when she’d first woken up from the dreams.

“I’m still here,” John said and wrapped his arms around her as she moved towards him. “Please tell me the virus didn’t get released with them,” John asked watching Carson, now moving between the other bodies scattered around the area. John’s radio activated, but he didn’t listen to the report, choosing to focus on Elizabeth and Carson.

“I don’t know that, yet,” Carson said. “I’m going to have to take fresh blood from you both and keep you separated from the others. At least for the time being.”

“Where do you want us?” John asked aware that Elizabeth had stopped crying and was resting almost completely limp against him.

“Main infirmary,” Carson said. “Get some rest while you’re there. Allison, can you take blood before they go?” he said turning to one of the nurses.

~~**~~

John sat on the bed next to Elizabeth in the infirmary, he’d looked around for a few minutes after she’d finally fallen asleep but he couldn’t find anything of interest. He was too confused; too concerned to think of anything except the details Josiah had given them. They were the answer, together. Did that mean a mixture of their DNA, some weird concoction that Carson could whip up to give everyone else? Or was it something else.

There was something niggling at the back of John’s brain; he could feel a sense of familiarity of the room, of sitting, as he did now, on one of the beds watching her. Watching Bethan and their doctor. But the memory was being illusive. He had to figure out what it was before it was too late for them; the answer was there, in front of him – literally. He gave a short, sharp laugh.

“How ironic,” he said aloud. “Find the woman you’re meant to be with, only to have her taken away by a twenty thousand year old virus.”

“Doesn’t get any weirder does it?” John turned at the sound of the voice and found a woman standing nearby, her hand just resting on the foot of his bed. Aside from the thinned face and hollowed eyes, she could have been Elizabeth.

“Bethan?”

The woman nodded. “I’ll be back to help you John,” she said. “Just as soon as you remember why this room makes your brain work overtime. But I will suggest you move back two beds. It’ll help.”

He blinked at her and she just smiled at him. He turned to look at the beds behind him and then turned back to ask why but she’d gone.

~~**~~

John pried his eyes open slightly confused about the level of noise in the room. Last he remembered he had been in the infirmary with Elizabeth, everyone else had stayed or returned to the gate room. Yet, now there seemed to be an abundance of noise. He pushed up slowly and looked around, it was the same room and he was in the same bed he’d fallen asleep in, only now there were a dozen or so people he didn’t recognise.

A man approached, dressed slightly different from everyone else. John guessed he was the doctor and gave him a smile, but when the man spoke an unintelligible noise came out, as though he was using a very old and extremely poor quality microphone. After a minute the man turned and as he said one last thing John caught sight of Bethan. He knew it was her - the differences between her and Elizabeth were clear in her younger years.

As the doctor moved her towards the next bed John started to picture Elizabeth in her mid 20’s. He was pulled out of the thought when Bethan said something, but as with the doctor, the words came out crackled and fuzzy. John just smiled and watched silently as a nurse took a blood sample from Bethan. He could understand why Josiah had fallen in love with her so easily, she was just as beautiful as Elizabeth - the same high cheek bones, gentle skin, playful eyes and, of course, kissable lips. John licked his own lips to remind himself of Elizabeth’s taste as the nurse moved away.

The doctor spoke again as he reappeared with a handheld device and as Bethan shifted to lay back, John noticed she was pregnant, just a little ahead of Elizabeth. John jumped off the bed and moved to the side of Bethan’s bed, she reached for him instantly and John took her hand without thinking. He looked down at her, picking out the slight fear in her eyes; she opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the strong steady beat of the baby’s heart.

“She looks perfectly healthy,” the doctor said and it took a few seconds for John to realise he had heard the words instead of noise. It was short lived thought as the next thing he said was back to the horrible sound of a bad microphone.

Bethan nodded at something and the doctor gave a smile and moved away. Confused, John waited patiently, looking anywhere but at Bethan until she tugged on his hand and asked him something. Not knowing what she’d said, John just smiled and hoped the doctor would return soon. Bethan managed to ask again before the doctor returned with a nurse and something that looked a lot like a needle. He talked for a few minutes, John assumed he was explaining what he was going to do, but as it all came out muffled and crackling, he couldn’t work out just what was going on. He quickly got the idea when the needled came into play and he watched as a sample of the baby’s DNA was collected.

“If I’m right,” the doctor began, but everything that followed was muffled again and John let out a frustrated sigh.

~~**~~

Carson huffed out a furious breath and turned away from the computer screen. He would have given anything at that moment to be able to rub his eyes in hopes of waking himself up. But the containment suit made that simple action impossible. He settled for a quick shake of his head and turned back to the blood tests. The first round had finished over an hour ago and had been clear of any pathogens, but those samples had been taken before the earthquake and he’d wasted quite a bit of time since then questioning himself, knowing that he could have avoided all of this if he’d just quarantined them and taken them back to Atlantis. He’d been stubborn though, thinking the whole place was contaminated and had forced them to stick to one of his protocols for disease control. He sighed again and forced the train of thought out of his mind in favour of working on the current problem.

John’s sample had come back with bad results, as had Lorne’s and Peters’, he’d done Elizabeth’s once already, but it had shown the same results as her previous test – nothing. It was her test he was doing now, for the second time and so far the same results had come up. To say he was confused would be a massive understatement. Lorne and Peters had found nothing in their search, aside from the main infirmary, there was only one other containment area and everything there seemed to be intact. Whatever this virus was, it spread fast. His computer beeped to indicate the end of the test and he scrolled through the results with a creased brow. Again Elizabeth’s results were clear. Carson closed them down and set up the test for Teyla, he’d have to go check on the parents to be soon and give them the bad and unusual news.

~~**~~

John felt odd the second he woke up, a heavy feeling settled over him as though he hadn’t slept at all. He rolled carefully onto his side and looked towards Elizabeth’s bed only to find her sitting on the one right next to him instead of three cots away.

“I take it you don’t want to sleep with me anymore,” she said in jest. He attempted a smile but all the muscles in his face stung in the action.

“Has Carson been back?” he asked finding his throat tight and rough.

“No,” Elizabeth said slipping off the bed and moving closer to him. “Not yet.” She placed a hand on his forehead and instantly stepped back. “Oh God,” she breathed.

“Tell me you feel alright,” John croaked.

“I feel fine, just as I did yesterday.”

“Good,” John said attempting to sit up. “Then you need to get as far away from me as possible.”

“John...”

“Elizabeth, if I’m infected and you’re not...”

“I touched Josiah, I should be infected.”

“But you’re not, so move away before you are.”

Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth and John tried his hardest to give his best ‘that’s an order’ stare until she finally moved away. He dropped back onto the bed, feeling completely exhausted and watched as a red suit moved into the room before he fell asleep again.

~~**~~

The tears started to fall the second she moved away from him, her heart felt heavy, drained as though something or someone had sucked the life out of it. She’d caused this; she’d brought him here, brought them all here and all to chase a dream. The heavy feeling quickly turned into pain and the closer she came to the corner of the room the worse the pain became. She’d barely managed to press her back to the wall before the door opened and Carson came in with a nurse in tow. She knew it was her pained sob that turned him towards her.

“Elizabeth,” he said, but her own pained sob cut him off. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, not even to turn the doctor’s attention to John, now unconscious on the bed. Her self control seemed to have fled and all she could do for the moment was press herself further into the corner and slip down to the ground with her eyes fixed on John.

Carson finally turned, as though something had suddenly occurred to him and he quick footed across to John’s bedside. She couldn’t watch as he began checking John’s vitals, instead pulling her knees up until the pressure in her stomach became a little uncomfortable.

“Fever,” Carson started and Elizabeth looked up as John stirred. “Colonel, how do you feel?”

“Like crap,” John said, though the words barely carried to her ears from his rough throat.

“Beyond that?” Carson asked feeling for a pulse.

“More crap. Sore throat, headache, pain in my joints.” John stretched a little and shifted on the bed. “Correction, pain everywhere.”

“Sounds like flu,” the nurse said.

“Tired,” John muttered.

“Give him Vicodine for the fever and pain,” Carson said and the nurse instantly moved away.

Elizabeth’s eyes watched her, following her to the door and out as another nurse came in. She moved over to John’s side, taking the place of the other nurse and said something in a low tone that Elizabeth couldn’t quite hear. Carson turned sharply towards her and quickly closed the distance between himself and Elizabeth, he dropped down onto a knee in front of her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away from John again.

“Elizabeth,” he said, trying to gain her attention. “Elizabeth,” he repeated, this time, taking her by the arm and squeezing enough to draw her away from John. “Do you have any flu-like symptoms?”

For a moment, the question didn’t register and she stared blankly at him. She was killing the man she loved, killing the father of her baby and several other people because she couldn’t stay still at night and had to wander off around the city – or to other, infected worlds. A slight tremor shook the room and seemed to jolt through her body to wake her brain up.

“No,” she whispered. “I feel fine.”

“Ashley,” he said turning towards the nurse. “Take Doctor Weir to one of the rooms along the East side of this tower, and then come help me in the gate room.”

“Wait,” Elizabeth almost pleaded. “I want to stay with John.”

“Elizabeth, you’re not infected and everyone else is. You need to stay as far away from them as possible.”

“Everyone?” she asked in a half sob.

“Yes, their symptoms aren’t as pronounced as John’s, but they are showing similar signs. We need to protect you, keep you healthy for as long as we can.”

She nodded slowly and Carson helped her to her feet. She paused, perhaps a little too long; to look at John, take in the sudden paleness of his skin before she followed the nurse out the other side of the infirmary and down the corridor.

~~**~~

John pried his eyes open to find his bedside empty; he let his brow crease slightly and listened to the level of noise in the room. Last he remembered he had been in the infirmary with Carson looming over him and no sign of Elizabeth. Again there seemed to be an abundance of unexplainable noise. He pushed up slowly, expecting the pain of illness and looked around, it was the same room and he was in the same bed he’d fallen asleep in, only now there were a dozen or so people he vaguely recognised.

A man approached, dressed slightly different from everyone else. The doctor, John remembered, a little confused about the setting of this particular dream. He gave him a smile, but when the man spoke an unintelligible noise came out, as though he had yet to get rid of that old and extremely poor quality microphone. After a minute the man turned and as he said one last thing John caught sight of Bethan. He knew it was her - the differences between her and Elizabeth were clear in her younger years.

“Lady Bethan,” the doctor said as he moved her towards the next bed.

“I still can’t figure out how you always manage to beat me here,” she said with a smile.

“I can move faster,” John teased and watched silently as a nurse took a blood sample from Bethan. He could understand why Josiah had fallen in love with her so easily, she was just as beautiful as Elizabeth - the same high cheek bones, gentle skin, playful eyes and, of course, kissable lips. John licked his own lips to remind himself of Elizabeth’s taste as the nurse moved away.

The doctor spoke nonsense again as he reappeared with a handheld device and as Bethan shifted to lay back, John noticed she was pregnant, just a little ahead of Elizabeth. John jumped off the bed and moved to the side of Bethan’s, she reached for him instantly and John took her hand without thinking. He looked down at her, picking out the slight fear in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the strong steady beat of the baby’s heart.

“She looks perfectly healthy,” the doctor said. “Fingers, toes, nice strong heartbeat, it’s as though nothing has happened to her. I’d...” whatever the doctor said next had returned to the horrible sound of a bad microphone.

Bethan nodded at something and the doctor said, gave a smile and moved away. Confused, John waited patiently, looking anywhere but at Bethan until she tugged on his hand and asked him something. Not knowing what she’d said, John just smiled and hoped the doctor would return soon. Bethan managed to ask again before the doctor returned with a nurse and something that looked a lot like a needle. He talked for a few minutes, John assumed he was explaining what he was going to do, but as it all came out muffled and crackling, he couldn’t work out just what was going on. He quickly got the idea when the needled came into play and he watched as a sample of the baby’s DNA was collected.

“If I’m right,” the doctor began, but everything that followed was muffled again and John let out a frustrated sigh. He closed his eyes as the doctor moved away and brought his hands up to cover his face.

~~**~~

The room Nurse Ashley had left her in seemed to taunt her. Scarcely decorated and too bright in the afternoon sun to fit with her current mood which screamed she was doing something wrong. She was. Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t be sitting here, staring at the walls that seemed to ooze and flex at her as though they themselves were contaminated by her presence, she should be back in the infirmary with John, holding his hand, reminding him that he had a child on the way that needed a father. Not to mention a fiance who needed his support.

On top of that, there was the rest of the people who’d come here looking for her. Lorne’s team, Teyla and Ronon back in the gate room starting the slow path of suffering she’d forced on them. The same path John was taking a quicker route down.

She stood up and started pacing. She’d been doing that for most of the time she’d been here, taking in the distance between the window and the door and one wall to the other. She could dictate off by heart how many steps covered the spaces and even tell you the square ‘footage’ of the room. She’d counted the windows so many times she couldn’t remember what number came after seven and was trapped between thankful she didn’t know the time and almost begging the gods for a watch.

She shouldn’t be here.

Her stomach gave an unhappy lurch and she paused to frown down at the raise where their child grew. A tentative hand came up to curl over the base of her belly and she considered for a moment at the feeling she’d just felt was her child moving and not the need for food. It had felt more like butterflies than it had like her tummy rumbling. A fresh wave of tears went along with the idea that was something she should be sharing with John. Something they should be sharing curled up in bed together, not separated by half a tower to protect her from becoming just as ill as he currently was.

Elizabeth dropped down in her spot, sitting on the floor of the room with her eyes fixed on the wall ahead of her and a hand resting on her stomach. She wanted the child more than anything else she could think of right now. But she also wanted John just as much and it frightened her that he could be dying in the infirmary right now and she wouldn’t know until someone decided it was time to tell her.

She tried hard not to let that thought take over, but failed and couldn’t help but cry out as the emotional pain rippled back over her chest and down through her stomach. Carson had only come to check on her once, taken another blood sample and made sure she wasn’t starting to get symptoms like the others, he’d made sure she knew John was resting, even if it was uncomfortably at the moment, but he hadn’t been back since and she knew the only thing that would keep him away, was an emergency. The only emergency they could possibly have now was someone dying.

Another short tremor shook the floor and the vibrations added to the fluttering in her stomach. Even if he wasn’t awake, even if he couldn’t feel the movements anyway, John’s hand should be there with hers, on her stomach waiting for their creation to grow stronger.

She took a deep breath and calmed her emotions for a moment before she climbed up from the floor and moved to the door. She paused, was it really what she wanted to do, leave the room and risk losing them both? No, but she loved John and she should be with him, encouraging him to fight the illness. The thought that he’d do the same for her guided her hand to the lock and she stepped out of the room and headed back to the infirmary.

~~**~~

“This is impossible,” Carson said a little frustrated as well as slightly amazed. He dropped the computer on the bed beside him and dropped back in the chair with a huff.

“What’s wrong?” Ronon asked from the bed behind him. Carson hadn’t realised anyone was awake; he’d ordered them all to rest, even if their signs of illness were light compared to John. Touches of dizziness and bad throats through the occasional fever.

Carson sighed. “No matter how many times I run Elizabeth’s blood work, she comes up clean. Either the computer’s broken, I’m missing a test or a pathogen, or...”

“She could be immune,” Ronon said finishing the thought he was having but didn’t see as possible. If anything, Elizabeth should be on the same fast track illness John was currently on, they’d both come in direct contact with the sick people in the isolation area. Yet somehow she was completely impervious to it, while John had taken on his own virus as well as hers.

“Aye, I refer to my original statement. Impossible.”

“You live in another galaxy, in a city built over ten thousand years ago by a far superior race,” Ronon pointed out. “The same race that picked Weir to be the... whatever you call it of their queen.”

“Reincarnation.”

“Yeah, that,” Ronon said shifting. “You have to ask why her? Why those particular dreams? Why show her all the relationship stuff with what’s-his-name? And most of all, why lead her to this outpost where they left the sick?”

“Why now?” Carson asked, but nothing came to mind. He had no answers to all those questions, only ideas and speculations. “I need to go check on Elizabeth and John,” he said indicating for a nurse to bring him some equipment. “Get some rest Ronon,” he added as he got up.


	9. Chapter 9

He scrubbed his hands down over his face and pried his eyes open to find himself sitting on the bed in the infirmary, the bed beside him complete empty. He let his brow crease slightly and listened to the level of noise in the room. Again there seemed to be an abundance of unexplainable noise and as he looked around he found several of the same ancient dressed people in the same infirmary he was quickly becoming to know. The doctor approached and gave him a smile.

“Lord Josiah,” he said in a bright tone. “You’re always so eager to hear your child’s heart beat,” John was smiling at the idea, he’d done the same for Elizabeth’s first scan but when the man spoke again the unintelligible noise came out, returning to the old and extremely poor quality microphone. After a minute the man turned and as he said one last thing John caught sight of Bethan. Still a young and just as beautiful version of Elizabeth.

“Lady Bethan,” the doctor said as he moved her towards the next bed. “You’re right on time.”

“I still can’t figure out how you always manage to beat me here,” she said with a smile.

“I can move faster,” John teased and watched silently as a nurse took a blood sample from Bethan. He couldn’t get past how delicate and powerful she looked, easy to love as both a man and a subject. Perhaps that’s what he found so beautiful about Elizabeth. That and the same high cheek bones, gentle skin, playful eyes and, of course, kissable lips.

“Shall we see to your child?” The doctor said as he reappeared with a handheld device and Bethan shifted to lay back. John shifted for a moment, fighting the urge to jump off the bed and moved to Bethan’s side. Giving up, he hopped off and took her offered hand without hesitation. He looked down at her, searching for the slight fear in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the strong steady beat of the baby’s heart.

“She looks perfectly healthy,” the doctor said. “Fingers, toes, nice strong heartbeat, it’s as though nothing has happened to her. I’d say you were lucky if I could stop thinking some higher being was looking out for you. I’d like another amniotic fluid sample, if I may.” Bethan nodded and the doctor gave a smile and moved away. John waited patiently, looking anywhere but at Bethan until she tugged on his hand.

“Every time we do this I worry he’s going to tell us I infected our child,” she said. John felt his face tense, he knew the outcome of this baby’s life and that of the children she would later have.

“He’s the chief around here,” John offered. “He’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

“Will you still love me if I have?” Bethan managed to ask before the doctor returned with a nurse and a needle. He talked for a few minutes, words that John couldn’t understand – he’d pretty much figured out that he was explaining what he was going to do, but as it all came out muffled and crackling, he couldn’t work out just what was going on. The needle came into play and he watched as a sample of the baby’s DNA was collected.

“If I’m right,” the doctor began, but everything that followed was muffled again. “...It might take quite a long time to work out though.” John let out a frustrated sigh and squeezed his eyes shut.

~~**~~

Carson sighed again; he’d been doing that a lot lately and couldn’t seem to stop himself. They were no closer to answers, no closer to a needed cure and he felt completely useless trapped in the containment suit. His hands felt twice as big, padded by the hot gloves and he’d fumbled more than once with their oversized fingers. This check in with Atlantis was just another example of him being fumble-fingers, twice now he’d tried to click send on the screen and ended up pushing three or four other buttons, one time he’d even managed to hit delete.

 _“Got it,”_ Chuck said over the radio. _“Relaying to the infirmary.”_

 _“So far, the results have been inconclusive,”_ Keller put in. _“There seems to be no reason at all why Doctor Weir is perfectly healthy. The pathogen is in her system, it’s just not active, almost as though it’s dying the second it tries to attack her immune system.”_

“Aye, now you know how I feel sitting here watching everyone get sick while she’s perfectly fine. There has to be a reason for all this,” he mused then shook himself out of it. “Let me know if you find anything in the new batch of information.”

 _“Is there anything else we can help with?”_ Rodney’s voice was shockingly hollow, as though he’d been awake for several days in a row and had slacked on his coffee intake.

“Not really, unless you can send us all the information on this outpost that’s in the database, information about the planet and whatever you can find on the plague.”

 _“Gee, don’t want much do you?”_ Rodney snipped and Carson could hear Radek making a comment about it in the background. _“Sorry,”_ Rodney said. _I’ll see what I can find.”_

 _“Get some rest, doctor, let us do the work for a while,”_ Keller said.

“If only I didn’t have patients to look after.” Silently he wished he didn’t, but he couldn’t change the present so he’d have to deal with it. He could do one more pass over the people in the gate room and then check in on Elizabeth, stopping in on John on his way back.

“Doc,” Lorne called and Carson turned to see the man standing on shaky feet a few steps away. “My back is itching like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Alright, take off your shirt and we’ll have a look.” He turned to the nurses to see if they were busy before turning back to check Lorne’s back. From neck to pants he was covered in red spots and looked extremely uncomfortable. He pressed carefully against the skin beside a spot and watched as the white colour slowly returned to its angry red tone. A heat rash maybe, nothing serious, just really annoying. “Let’s try some cold cloths on this, see if the cool water reduces the itching.”

He stood, turning towards the other patients as the tremor started. He shook his head and headed for his temporary working area. They had been coming and going for a while now, but he was too busy to let them get in his way. They were unnerving, but hopefully they would be done here and back on Atlantis before the city was swallowed by another quake.

He sat down, leaning back in the chair to rest his body and closed his eyes for a moment. He sighed and instantly felt as though something was off. The darkness behind his closed lids was swaying, as if he was dizzy, only without the dizzy feeling - more like being on a boat at rough seas. He opened his eyes as the rumbling began, low at first and gradually growing in volume and proximity.

“Oh no,” Ashley said to his left and Carson got up to move closer.

The ground picked that moment to lurch unnaturally and Carson stumbled forward, grabbing Ashley as he went and slammed hard against the wall beside the Stargate. He heard a split second of creaking metal before the floor around the gate split and he pulled the nurse back away from it as it rocked with the sway of the tower. He noticed out the corner of his eye that the corridor to one side was slowly caving in and he gave a moment’s thought to how he’d get to Elizabeth after this was over. Not to mention the infirmary to tend to Colonel Sheppard. Scraping from the control room turned his attention and he looked up to see one of the consoles rocking its way towards the overlooking balcony.

“Move,” he shouted to the group pressed against the wall underneath it as he realised the wire cables were already loose. He turned back to the collapsing corridor to see several of the panels fall from the ceiling and made a mental note of the sounds coming from the corridor next to him. Back up in the control room, the stairs up to the Queen’s office had twisted out of shape and he watched as the family portrait fell from the wall and against the desk.

Ronon, still thankfully able bodied, grabbed two of Lorne’s men from under the control room. Both had been sitting on the floor, weak from the level of their illness as Lorne himself pushed the nurses ahead of him and out of the way. Teyla had yet to move from her bed under the conference room. They moved quickly, stepping out of the way faster than Lieutenant Peters, who tripped, staggered and finally hit the deck just as the equipment fell.

Carson moved, his hands tight in the suit Ashley had on and took a few shaky steps towards the group as Ronon and Lorne tried hard to shift the console as the tower seemed to tip. Ashley pushed him back, shoving him out of the way as the Gate swayed dangerously towards them then tipped back the other way and seemed to freeze in a Tower of Piazza stance before if finally tipped over and fell through the window and out of sight.

He ducked out of the way of the glass, covering his nurse to protect her and instantly felt the sharp shard slice through the suit and his arm as the window shattered. He straightened up and checked the rip in his arm, the sleeve was hanging on by half the material and his arm was slowly starting to bleed. As Ashley moved to straighten up he let out a groan, she had a similar slit in her containment suit, only smaller and without the cut skin, but still they were both now infected.

He checked if she was alright, pointed out the hole in her suit and turned to see the guys tip the console off Peters. Carson didn’t even pay attention to the fact that the quake had ended, he staggered across the room unsteadily as though he’d just stepped off a boat and dropped down next to the lieutenant.

~~**~~

Elizabeth staggered against the wall and dropped painfully to her knees. The edges of the tower were shaking and rocking as though she was standing on three or four carnival fun houses. She reached up and slapped the control to the nearest door and crawled inside, dropping down beside the door to wait out the quake, then she could continue to the infirmary – that was, if the tower was still standing at that point.

~~**~~

“Peters?” Lorne’s commanding tone seemed to reverberate around Ronon’s head even with the distance between them. He stopped at the edge of the tower, looking down through the broken window to the small circle below on the pier. It was balancing precariously on the edge, threatening to vanish into the water and out of their grasp and it made him give a silent prayer that there wouldn’t be another quake or even a tremor in the next couple of hours. One of Lorne’s men was clearing the salvageable corridor out of the gate room, the main route to the infirmary and Doctor Weir had completely caved in, making it more difficult to reach them, but not completely impossible.

Carson and Lorne, along with a couple of the nurses were seeing to Lieutenant Peters and Ronon could tell the second he’d moved the console that the outlook for him wasn’t good. The heavy piece of equipment had dropped across his spine and chances were, if Carson could save him with the limited supplies they had, he’d never be able to walk again and would, as a result, be sent back to Earth.

Teyla had sat up on her bed, looking extremely ill and almost too weak to remain upright, she watched the medical emergency with steel eyes that he knew wouldn’t keep if the man died, but there was still a change, however small it was.

They needed to get down to the gate and granted, he wasn’t being very useful in that regard at the moment, but all the same he needed a moment. Ronon had been on planets that had quakes like this, the rumbling alone was enough to scare the hardest of men, but this place was different, worse somehow. Perhaps the plague was weakening his mind as well as his body, or perhaps it was the fact that he had very little sleep in the last two days.

He gave a deep sigh and turned to survey the room, Carson was desperately trying to keep the Lieutenant alive, Lorne helping where he could and the nurses efficiently handing needed equipment and injecting requested substances. He turned away and moved over to the other of Lorne’s men, who had sat exhausted on the floor between the corridor and the doctor. He didn’t spare a thought for the state of the man’s body, they needed to clear the way down to the gate and drag it off the edge of the city before they lost their only way out of here and their only method of getting more food and medical supplies. He pulled the man to his feet and shoved him towards the corridor before following and starting to pick up the pieces of fallen structure. Working wasn’t distracting enough. Behind him he could hear Carson’s tone becoming more and more strained as he lost the battle to save the young man. Then there was almost dead silence, the last breaths of the lieutenant and the sounds around him as they carried on working.

“The ring,” Peters croaked.

“Doctor Weir still has it,” Lorne said and for a moment Ronon paused to look at what was happening. Carson had sat back on his heels, the battle obviously lost and his containment helmet discarded on the floor behind him. A few steps away one of the nurses was struggling out of her suit as she battled with her emotions. He’d never considered that losing someone would be just as hard on the nurses as it was on the Doctor who pronounced him dead.

“It was my mothers,” Peters explained. “She gave it to me when she died. I have no...” he faded off for a moment. “No other family.”

“We’ll look after it,” Lorne said. “Maybe we can bury it with you when we get back to Atlantis.”

“No.” The word was forceful and seemed to drain all the life from him. Ronon turned back to his job as the nurse moved over to start helping, seeming to need distraction from what was happening. “She,” he paused and Ronon could hear him struggling now. “Keep it,” he added. “Pass on. Family. Rememb...”

Silence fell suddenly, the deep breathing of the lieutenant was gone and the workers ahead of him had stopped in their tracks. To his left, the nurse dropped her chin to her chest and he watched her lips move in a prayer for his soul. He let the silence linger, knowing there were a thousand better ways for a man to die, no matter what his age.

“Time of death,” Carson said dryly, pausing both to catch his breath and check his watch, “02:17.”

Ronon swallowed hard and turned back to the task at hand. A second later the others began to work as well and within a few minutes Lorne and one of the other nurses had moved over to help clear the way.

~~**~~

He scrubbed his hands down over his face and pried his eyes open to find himself sitting on the bed in the infirmary, again. He’d been seeing this same dream over and over for the last – god knew how many times. He’d figured out long ago that this was one of Josiah’s memories, that there had to be something important he was being shown here, but for the life of him, he couldn’t work out what. He let his brow crease slightly and listened to the activity in the room.

Every time he woke up he tried to answer another question, why here? The cure to the plague had to come from medical. Why this time? The plague had started with Bethan and Josiah’s first born, a girl they had called Jenna. Why were they showing him the scan and foetus sample? There had to be something important about the baby before it was born and obviously after the plague contact. If only he could understand what it was.

He couldn’t help but wonder about Elizabeth’s dreams too, she’d been shown the plague, how they had got it and the fact that Bethan had abandoned her family and half her people to save the healthy part of their society. He couldn’t question the reasoning behind it; if they couldn’t find a cure then it was the only way to stop from wiping out a whole nation. She’d been led here, though, this was what stumped John. If she hadn’t been brought here by Josiah, he’d be fine, everyone else here in the city would be perfectly healthy back on Atlantis. Instead, he knew his physical self was sick and Elizabeth and their baby were at risk. If they could figure out why they’d been brought here to be put at risk, perhaps they could work out how to leave alive.

The doctor approached and gave him a smile.

“Lord Josiah,” he said in a bright tone. “You’re always so eager to hear your child’s heart beat,” John was smiling at the idea; he’d done the same for Elizabeth’s first scan. “Perhaps you should eagerly find your wife each week and drag her here. Then perhaps she’ll be on time.” He turned towards the door and spotted the young queen. “Ah, speak of the Queen and she shall appear. Lady Bethan,” the doctor said as he moved her towards the next bed. “You’re right on time.” John looked at his watch on instinct and noticed it was five after the hour so chances are, that was a lie.

“I still can’t figure out how you always manage to beat me here,” Bethan said with a smile to John.

“I can move faster,” John teased and watched silently as a nurse took a blood sample from Bethan. Even after all the times he’d seen this dream he couldn’t push past how delicate and powerful she looked, a look of young innocence that was capped with just enough strength to let you know crossing her would be a very big mistake. Perhaps that’s what he found so beautiful about Elizabeth, that and the kissable lips; he was becoming obsessed with her lips.

“Shall we see to your child?” The doctor said as he reappeared with a handheld device and Bethan shifted to lay back. John shifted for a moment before he hopped off and took Bethan’s hand. He looked down at her with a smile and waited to see what information he’d be privy to this time around.

“She looks perfectly healthy,” the doctor said. “Fingers, toes, nice strong heartbeat, it’s as though nothing has happened to her. I’d say you were lucky if I could stop thinking some higher being was looking out for you. I’d like another amniotic fluid sample, if I may.” Bethan nodded and the doctor gave a smile and moved away. John waited patiently, looking anywhere but at Bethan until she tugged on his hand.

“Every time we do this I worry he’s going to tell us I infected our child,” she said. John felt his face tense again, knowing the outcome of a child’s life was not something you could easily hide or deal with.

“He’s the chief around here,” John offered. “He’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

“Will you still love me if I have?” Bethan managed to ask before the doctor returned with a nurse and the needle.

“Ok,” the doctor started. “I’m sure you remember all this, but I’m going to say it anyway. You need to relax here for about half an hour after I’ve taken the sample, and then go easy on yourself for a few hours. Check back with me if you have any pains or discomfort out of the ordinary.” The needle came into play and he watched as once again a sample of the baby’s DNA was collected.

“If I’m right,” the doctor began and John braced himself for the horrible microphone effect. “I can find a cure to the plague from this. The data I had from the last check led me to believe the only way to find a cure would be through the baby’s DNA, as it’s taken the illness but isn’t sick, that leads me to believe it’s immune, perhaps a combination of your DNA is the key, who knows. It might take quite a long time to work out, though.”

~~**~~

“John,” Elizabeth breathed as she pushed a sticky strand of hair off his forehead. “You can fight this, you need to fight this.”

“Baby,” John muttered and Elizabeth smiled.

Of all the things he could think of while he had a fever and was barely conscious, the baby was top of the list. She wondered what his dreams were like, picturing himself in a rocking chair with a baby in his arms. She couldn’t remember if he’d ever mentioned his preference, a girl or a boy, but she could only seem to picture him with a boy in hands. The proud father of his very own son. Then again, she knew more about John’s history and family than he’d like, so perhaps she should be hoping for a girl.

“The baby,” John murmured again. “DNA,” he added as he turned his face away from her.

“What about the baby’s DNA?” she asked trying to figure out what was going on in his head. Not that she really wanted to know.

“Elizabeth,” Carson’s voice cut in just as John mumbled something else. “You can’t stay in here, love,” he added gripping her arm. It only took a moment for her to realise he had no containment suit on.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“I could ask the same thing,” Carson spat back.

“Yes, except that I was exposed and you willingly...”

“I didn’t willingly do this,” he interrupted.

“Oh,” she managed.

“The quake tipped the Stargate,” he explained. “It fell out the back window, the glass from the window ripped Ashley’s and my suits. We were exposed so what was the point of keeping the suits on. Lieutenant Peters has been seriously injured.” The last piece of information was said as though he didn’t really want to report it and she had a sense that he wasn’t being completely truthful with it. She studied him, wondering if he’d lie to her to save her feelings.

Deciding it didn’t matter at this moment in time she turned away and felt her shoulders sag at the hopelessness of this situation as she brought her thumb in across her hand to play with the ring she was wearing. It belonged to him, she didn’t know why he had it on him, but she did know it had come in handy for John at just the right moment.

“Baby,” John said reminding her that he’d started something. “Baby’s DNA is the cure,” he babbled and she watched Carson’s brow crease. She turned to John and ran a hand down his cheek.

“John? How do you know that?” she asked. John’s eyes opened and he looked up at her. “You said the baby’s...”

“Josiah,” John breathed. “He was there when the doctor said the baby’s DNA had the cure, something about the combination of his and Bethan’s genetics.”

“Is that possible?” Elizabeth asked turning to Carson.

“Their doctor took amniotic fluid, said he could make the cure from that,” John said sounding more and more as though he didn’t know what he was saying. For a fleeting moment a panic set in that Carson wouldn’t be able to use that information in time to save him. She had to swallow hard before she could turn back to the doctor.

“I can try,” he said. “It’s more to go on than we have so far. I just need to get a sample from you. Which means,” he said with a sigh. “I need to get supplies from Atlantis.”

“But the gate...”

“Yeah,” Carson said. “It’s on the floor at the base of the control tower.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Any ideas?” Ronon asked.

“Plenty,” Lorne said. “Just none of them helpful to this situation.”

“Things like sleep,” Jones put in.

“Or sunbathing,” Ashley added with her face towards the sky.

“Okay,” Ronon started seeing the appeal of at least one of those ideas. “But let’s look at it this way. We need to pull the gate onto the pier and turn it over or we lose our only way out of here for the next nine weeks.”

“Nine weeks?” Lorne asked and then nodded to himself. “That’s a lot of time to spend on military supplies in a place with quakes and dead people.”

“Rope,” Jones suggested. “Tie it around the gate we can pull it back up.”

“While we walk ourselves off the other side of the pier,” Lorne supplied.

“Would you rather have a hold of the gate when Atlantis dials in next?”

“Good point.”

Ronon quirked a brow at the thought, one hand in the way at just that right moment and someone would be bleeding to death. He didn’t want to do that, but at the very least they could let go quick enough and hope that the gate didn’t tip off the edge at that point. He turned to suggest that they didn’t have a lot of time to find rope if that’s what they were going to do when the rumbling began.

The pier rocked with the sway of the water and for just a moment Ronon thought he was going to be sick. That was until the gate tipped against the edge, tilting towards the water and the sensation of sinking kicked in and he dived for the gate. Beside him, Lorne, Jones and Hadly did the same, hooking an arm over the top of the gate to force it back down to the ground.

“Does anyone else think this is a mistake?” Lorne called over the loud rumbling. “If the gate’s gonna go, we’re no match for its weight.”

The gate pushed back and Ronon had just enough presence of mind to let go before metal hit metal and his fingers became flat attachments to his hands.

“Couple more of those and we lose that gate,” Ashley said.

“Wow.”

Elizabeth’s voice was a strange addition to the group and Ronon turned to find her standing nearby. She had one hand on her stomach, the other on her hip and he could have sworn she still looked perfectly fine, as though she’d just got up on Atlantis. The night clothes helped his mind picture her bright and cheery, getting ready for work with a grumpy John in the same room. He pushed that thought away as he suddenly realised she’d practically lived here.

“Is there rope somewhere?” He asked outright.

“Rope?” she said and he waited as her brow creased. After a moment she looked back at him and he could see the ‘yes’ clearly on her face, along with a touch of the weird sensation that came with knowing something you really shouldn’t. “Yeah,” she said unnecessarily. “This way,” she said and both Ronon and Lorne turned to follow her.

She turned into the corridor and to the left, walking down the hallway with an air of experience and a touch of majesty that seemed to fit her perfectly. All she was missing was the long flowing dress the monarchs in stories had worn. It was only a few minutes later that she turned into a room and he followed her in, amazed that the lights turned on for her instead of waiting for Lorne’s Ancient gene.

“Handy,” Lorne said. “A whole storage room of goodies.”

“It’s the doc’s storage room,” Elizabeth explained. “Everything they needed to accept and send transit from the islands. Rope,” she continued pointing to the right, “in case one of the sails breaks. Canvas for rips and banners if they had something or someone important on board,” she turned to them with a knowing grin and then moved off to the left. “And these,” she said pulling open a box and picking out a wooden pole. “For shifting heavy crates across the pier.”

“Nice,” Ronon said and moved over to the wall, it was lined with neatly tied ropes for them to use.

He picked up six of them then turned and caught Lorne’s eye as the man turned back to him. Turning a little more he saw Elizabeth test the weight of the box. It wasn’t very deep, probably held no more than two dozen of the poles, but they were long and probably weighted down to stop them rolling off the edge.

“Here,” he said holding out two of the rope groups to Elizabeth. “You take a couple of these, we’ll carry that.”

Elizabeth took them and he dumped the rest on top of the box and moved to the edge. He gave the side a test tug and let his brain start the battle between them being extra weighted or his arms just weak from the plague. Ignoring the pain in his shoulders, as it was probably all over Lorne’s body, they picked up the box and started back to the pier.

~~**~~

“Baby,” John muttered.

“Aye, Colonel, we’re working on it. We just have a slight problem,” Carson explained finding it slightly amusing that the problem was only slight. It was far from that simple, and could easily become worse if they didn’t rescue the gate quick enough.

“Elizabeth,” John said as Carson took his temperature. He was getting worse and far too quickly. “Is she safe?” he slurred, seemingly losing the battle to stay awake.

“She’s immune,” Carson said listening to his heart rate. “She went to check on everyone else.”

“No,” John fought back. “Infected.”

“She’s immune, Colonel. She can’t be infected,” he said then added, “At least as far as we can tell,” under his breath. It wasn’t looking good, if they didn’t find a cure soon, John would be dead before they could manage it. The problem with getting the cure was accessing the Stargate.

He turned his back to John and did the same check up on Teyla. He’d brought her down here from the gate room after they had managed to clear a path, she wasn’t doing all that great herself, but at the very least her heart rate was steady and her temperature was only slightly raised. He let out an exhausted sigh and dropped his head back to pray at the ceiling for some sort of miracle.

~~**~~

“Ready?” Lorne called, his arms were aching enough as it was, but they had no time to sit and rest or even wish for extra hands.

There were four men and four women, six ropes – which he admitted was a little excessive, but he wouldn’t complain. He stood in the middle of the group, Ronon to his left and the other two men on either side of them. Elizabeth and Ashley were sitting on their knees on either side of the Stargate as the other two sat nearby with the poles, ready to hand over the next one as they went.

“We need to lift, get a pole under each side and then start pulling,” he explained. “On three. One. Two. Three.”

The effort put into lifting the gate was enormous, but it barely budged off the ground and he stopped working a second later than the others. There was a massive flaw in their plan and it was the lack of muscle power.

“Why does the gate always fall butter side down?” Ashley asked.

“To piss us off,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not like bread and butter were you’ve added just a touch of weight to one side. It should be equally balanced.”

“Butter side down?” Ronon asked just a little perplexed.

“I wonder what happens if you butter both sides,” Ashley asked and silence fell for just a moment before Elizabeth began to giggle. The laugh that it built to was infectious and soon, he and a couple of the others had joined her.

“I bet somewhere, there’s a scientist who’s done that experiment, expecting to see his bread hovering above the ground spinning around.” Elizabeth managed to explain before she completely lost it.

Anyone who hadn’t been laughing before was now, with the exception of Ronon who was serious confused by the conversation.

“This isn’t helping,” Lorne said and almost instantly regretted it as the low rumble started and the pier began to rock.

“Pull,” Ronon bellowed, staggering backwards.

Lorne had enough sense to know he meant back and he stepped back and pulled on the rope with as much strength as he could. The gate shifted slightly as the tremor peaked and Elizabeth and Ashley managed to jam one of the poles under each side. The weight dropped slightly and he pulled forwards as the women shifted across the pier. The quake subsided and Lorne staggered slightly trying to find his normal balance.

When they’d managed to get the gate back onto the pier safely, Lorne dropped down onto his knees. He could really do with some sleep about now, but their problems were only just starting. They had to figure out how to turn the gate over and/or stand the thing up so they could get their supplies. Then there was the thought running through his brain that the control panel up in the gate room was both broken and out of range of the gate. Mind you, he wouldn’t have a problem shoving it out the window as well.

“We need to turn it over,” Ronon said, almost as though he was reading Lorne’s mind.

“Thank god we’re doing this one problem at a time,” Jones said dropping down on the deck beside him.

“I don’t suppose they had cranes?” Ashley asked.

“No,” Elizabeth said. “Heavy equipment was lifted by...” she paused and Lorne knew he wasn’t the only person who turned to look at her.

“Lifted by...” Lorne said trying to get the rest of the sentence out of her, but instead she got up and headed back for the door. He would have gotten up, but his body refused to cooperate, he was thankful when Ronon got up and followed her back into the city. “Okay, we can wait for the rest of that sentence.”

~~**~~

Carson shifted, forcing himself to sit upright in the backless chair. He was uncomfortable and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Though he hadn’t slept in what felt like days and he’d spent the last three or four hours in the infirmary with Teyla and John. That was after he’d spent almost an hour convincing Elizabeth she couldn’t stay in this room. He had tried to get her to go back to one of the rooms and get some rest, but that seemed to be a useless endeavour. She’d agreed to leave on the condition that he contacted her if something happened and she’d go help the others with the Stargate.

He hadn’t wanted to agree to that, but there was little choice. Between four barely infected people and two highly contagious ones, he’d rather she was with the four. At least then if something happened there were two clean nurses around who could deal with it and contact him. Then all he had to do was hope Ronon and Major Lorne would have the sense not to let her do too much.

Carson shook his head, turning back to his patient for a moment, watching her sleep and wishing he could do the same. When he finally reached out to check her pulse he caught sight of the rash on his hand, much the same as Lorne had on his back. Pulling away from Teyla, he studied the marks closely, as they had done with Lorne they returned quickly to their original state. He sighed, knowing now that his time was seriously limited. He couldn’t even begin to guess how long it would be before he was incapable of working on anything. He just had to hope they got the supplies before he was too sick to safely take the DNA sample from Elizabeth.

~~**~~

Elizabeth had only a vague sense of where she was going and what she was looking for. There was something. She knew there was something that could make this easier. It would have been nice if it had come to mind earlier though, would have saved the guys a lot of effort. She had to keep reminding herself that she didn’t live here, things were stored in different locations from Atlantis and the chances are there were things here and on Atlantis that they just hadn’t found yet.

She blocked out the sounds of Ronon following her as she started up the stairs, she knew one of them would tag along, being left alone was a rare thing on another planet and she knew the only reason she’d been left on her own before was because they had no idea of the scope of their situation – which seemed like a completely moot point at this moment in time.

“You know where we’re going, right?” Ronon asked as she turned at the top of a stairwell and hesitated before starting up the next set.

“Truthfully?” she said, trying to work out how many floors they’d come up and how many more she needed. “Not really, I just know it’s this way.”

“What, exactly, is this way?”

Elizabeth stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look at him. He looked worn out, exhausted and she felt fresh as a daisy, it was a shocking contrast to realise at that moment and it made her wonder just how fast this virus was going to work on her people. Would they be dead before they could find this useful device or would they all be alive long enough to find the cure from her baby? Instantly her hand drew to her stomach and she swallowed hard with the possibility that any number of things could go wrong between now and the time they worked this whole situation out.

“This facility,” she said breaking herself out of the desperate thoughts. “It’s the beta city to Atlantis, this wasn’t their first home, in fact it wasn’t most of the population’s home. About 3,000 people lived here, farmers, agriculturalists, this is where all their food and drink came from, that was the whole purpose of the city. Everything they did worked around that pier,” she turned and started walking down the corridor. “They’d bring in food from all over the planet and there are no jumpers here, so everything was done by sea.”

“So they....”

“They had methods of moving things off ships very quickly,” she told him over her shoulder. “Man power couldn’t shift crates of food that were the size of a jumper off a sea cruiser.”

“Not unless they were Superman.”

She quirked a brow at that and filed the reference away for later questioning. She had to stop him from hanging around with John and Rodney so much - it was starting to rub off on him.

“They had a way to shift things along the pier, platforms of some sort, built into the floors of the city. I think,” she stressed the word ‘think’, “they can be raised up too. If that’s the case...”

“Then we can raise one under the gate and use it flip it over.”

“Exactly.” She paused and looked around, she had a feeling she was in the right place, but the door to the room was being illusive. “It’s here somewhere,” she said and listened as Ronon turned on the spot.

“I don’t see any doors.”

She felt the urge before she realised her neck was responding and she looked up. “You’re looking in the wrong direction.” Ronon let out an impressed sound as he looked up.

“Here’s a question,” he said. “Why are the ceilings so high?”

“Maybe they were taller than you,” she said turning to him. “How strong do you feel right now?” Ronon’s brow went straight up.

“And if I drop you?”

“Then all my gymnastic training when I was child went completely to waste,” she said knowing it would confuse him.

Ronon shook the thought away and linked his fingers together before he took a step forward. He crouched down then stopped and straightened up.

“Not like that,” he said. “Sheppard would kill me.” She quirked a brow at the possibility. In their current conditions it would be nothing more than a cat fight and on their best days Ronon could win with one hand tied behind his back. “Turn around,” he said and hesitated for a moment before turning and as Ronon’s hand gripped her waist she had the thought that John wouldn’t waste time on hand to hand combat, he’d shoot Ronon before either of them could blink. “Jump on three,” Ronon said and she shifted to get a better position.

“Okay,” she said helpfully and looked up to spot her target.

“One,” Ronon said, his hand drifting down to grip at her hips. “Two. Three.” With a boost, he lifted her off the ground and pushed her up towards the ceiling. She took hold of the handle for the door and yanked, but it didn’t shift. She felt Ronon stagger slightly under her and she tugged at it again.

“It’s stuck,” she said, turning the hook and trying another direction.

“Quickly,” Ronon groaned and she could feel the strain of holding her up in the trembling of his arms. She took a deep breath and pulled at the hook, lifting her weight slightly off Ronon and a split second later she felt it give and the door swung open.

Ronon caught her, and he staggered forwards as he lowered her to the ground. A loud clank from behind them made her spin the second her feet were on the ground and she couldn’t help but wonder just what would have happened if Ronon hadn’t been ill. She moved back to the spot they had just been standing in and looked up the ladder to the gap in the ceiling.

“Well,” she said breathing a thankful sigh that they’d moved. “At least you won’t have to lift me up to get in there.”

“Good,” Ronon said dropping down on the ground.

~~**~~

“Doctor,” Ashley said, her voice a little shaky, he didn’t look good, not in the slightest. “You look like you could use a bed of your own.”

“I’m just a little tired, lass,” he said. “Have they sorted the problem with the gate?”

“Not yet, Doctor Weir remembered something that could be useful, but no one knows what just yet,” she said placing a hand on his forehead. No fever yet, that was a good start. “I think you should get some sleep while we’re waiting. If you can’t get that sample from Doctor Weir, I’ll have to ask Doctor Keller to do it in a suit.”

Carson nodded, much to her relief and moved towards one of the beds. “You know what we need?”

“No,” she said honestly, “but I can explain what we need to do.” Carson smiled as he pulled himself up onto the bed. “I’ll wake you when we’re set up,” she said, making sure he was settled before heading back out of the room.


	11. Chapter 11

The room she found herself in was by far the most technological room she’d seen in any ancient building. The screens in the room were touch activated and there were only a few other panels. She studied the one directly in front of her for a moment trying to work out where in the city it was keyed to when someone cleared their throat to her right. She turned to find a woman standing next to another of the screens.

“It’s this one,” the woman said. Though Elizabeth didn’t completely take the words in, she was too busy studying the shallow face of what could have been her mother at a slightly younger age or even here at her current. “Hello, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth; there should have been a reply on the tip of her tongue. A hello, or a ‘you’re Bethan’, but instead she just stared at the woman trying to work out if she was more afraid or angry. The emotions were mixing horribly together, this woman was her, she could surface the dreams again, control her actions, just as Josiah had done, yet at the same time, she’d abandoned the man she loved, the man she was destined to be with and their twin boys.

“If you like,” Bethan said. “You can lecture me about leaving people behind later. You need to turn that gate over and get your supplies. Or you’re going to know how it feels to see your lover die.” She indicated the console behind her and stepped further to the side.

A pang of guilt shuddered over her for a second before she finally moved towards the screen and studied it. It barely took a second to figure out where the panels were and she reached up to move one just under the side of the Stargate. She heard the shuddering and a cry from one of the women out of the pier and moved over to the window to look down. Everyone had scattered across the pier, moving away from the gate. She caught sight of Hadly who looked up at just that moment and she gave a small wave before turning back to the control.

“Right then,” she breathed and chanced a look at Bethan. “How do I raise the platform?”

“I recommend you get a few of them on the platform, so they can push the gate over to another – which you could put on the other side so you can lower the gate carefully.”

Elizabeth just looked at her for a moment before she quirked a brow and reached up to her ear. She sighed, forgetting she didn’t have a radio and turned back to the hatch. She climbed down the ladder and approached Ronon; he looked as though he’d fallen asleep.

“Ronon,” she said carefully. He hummed in response and she crouched down next to him. “I need your radio,” she said carefully unhooking the base unit from the side of his pants and reaching for the ear piece.

“What?” Ronon said moving his hand up to stop her and finally opening his eyes.

“I just need your radio,” she repeated. “You can sleep, I’ll wake you when I’m done up here.”

“Okay,” he said easily and she took the ear piece before moving back to the ladder. She hooked the pack onto her pyjama bottoms at the top of the ladder, cleared off the ear piece and popped it into place before switching on the receiver.

“Major,” she said, testing to see if she had the right frequency. She’d have to have words with Ronon if he didn’t.

 _“Doctor Weir,”_ he said as she moved back over to the window where Bethan now stood. _“Woah,”_ he said as she stopped in front of the glass. _“Am I the only one seeing double?”_

“She’s Bethan, Major. I need you to get the ropes, hook them through the gate so you can stand on the platform further down the pier.” She watched Lorne turn to look for the platform. “Hang on,” she said and moved to the screen. She quickly calculated the distance she would need to lower the gate back down and shifted a platform into the place before lifting just slightly off the pier’s level. It was then that a thought occurred to her and she turned back to Bethan. “Are there ladders on the sides of the platforms?”

“Yes,” Bethan said. “Sometimes they need repairing when they are locked at the top.”

“Major,” she said moving back to the window. Lorne looked back up at her. “Hook the ropes over the gate so you can pull it to lean against that platform when it’s raised. Get as many people on there as you safely can. We might be able to keep the gate standing.”

 _“What about the quakes?”_

“It will roll to the side if the pier shakes,” Bethan added.

“If I raise two more platforms on either side of the gate once it’s against that platform, it won’t be able to move,” she explained.

 _“Doctor Weir,”_ Lorne said before she could turn back to the screen. She looked down to a thumbs-up from him. _“I’m really starting to understand why you got picked for this expedition.”_

“Just now?” she asked coyly. Lorne laughed and she smiled, knowing he couldn’t see it before she turned back to the screen. Bethan followed and reached across the screen to a button. Before Elizabeth could protest a set of five dots appeared on the pier layout. She watched two of them move across to the side of the pier before heading for the platform and she turned with a grin as she realised Bethan had activated a life sign detector to show her were everyone was.

“Now you can make sure you don’t hurt anyone.”

“Thank you.”

 _“We’re ready,”_ Lorne said. Elizabeth turned back to the screen and took in the four dots on the platform and the other heading back to the door. She waited until the other person was out of the way before she started to raise the platforms up. _“You know,”_ Lorne said as she set a steady pace and moved back to the window. _“Now would be really crappy time for a quake.”_

 _“Thank you very much for the heart attack,”_ Allison said.

 _“Erm, Doctor Weir, I don’t suppose you can move the platforms closer together while they rise up?”_ Lorne said. _“The gate’s starting to slip sideways, and not in a good direction.”_

Elizabeth moved back quickly and started to raise the panel between the gate and the ocean.

 _“Much better,”_ Lorne said. She waited a little while before she stopped the platform and then activated the one on the other side. She couldn’t trap it in place just yet, but she needed to keep the gate from rolling away.

“Can I move the platforms closer?” she asked Bethan.

“You have to stop them, move them closer and raise them again.”

Nodding, Elizabeth paused the one Stargate side and carefully moved it towards the other platform before setting it back in motion. She moved back over to the window and looked down, the gate was almost vertical enough that they could pull and had she been a few levels lower, she would have had a clear view of the four people gathered on the distant platform. As it was, she had enough of a view to know Allison had taken off her containment suit – but she’d have to work out the reasoning behind that later on. She moved back to the control panel, counted silently to ten then stopped the platforms.

 _“Ready to pull,”_ Lorne said. _“And it’s times like this I wish we had seven Ronon’s.”_

Elizabeth smiled and watched as all four of them stepped to the far side of the platform and started to pull. She smiled when she realised he’d used only two ropes to set the pulley system, giving each person one end of a rope meant the weight was shared between them. When Lorne almost tripped off the edge of the platform she knew the idea wasn’t as good as she’d hoped.

 _“Another platform?”_ Lorne asked.

Elizabeth didn’t reply, she just moved back to the screen and set another platform rising up behind them.

“You know they can be tilted too,” Bethan said. “We had a problem with a ship a few years before I was married, the men couldn’t walk themselves off the deck and we could only get two men up there. So we adjusted the panels to tilt and lined up a few to create a slide down to the pier.”

“That sounds like fun,” Elizabeth said with a smile.

“I was never permitted to try it,” Bethan said. “I was advised that it would be unladylike and very unmajesty of me.”

“Unmajesty?” Elizabeth questioned.

“Yeah, I’m sure my advisors liked making up words to confuse me or sound more important.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Josiah,” Elizabeth said thinking unmajesty sounded like something John would say. She turned before Bethan could answer and stopped the panel level with her men. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if tilting the platform away from them could help them at all or put them at more risk. Deciding she didn’t want to take the chance, she moved back to the window.

“Could have been,” Bethan said slightly perplexed. “Josiah’s brother used to make up words like that,” she added on a side note. Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at the woman just as the group below managed to get the leverage on the gate and she turned back sharply as it clanked against the side of the platform.

“Good work,” she said into the radio. “There should be a ladder on there somewhere, get down and to the infirmary for some well deserved rest.” She didn’t wait until they were off the platform, opting to raise the other two into place and trap the gate as they moved.

 _“Yes ma’am,”_ Lorne said sounding a little too relieved. _“Just as soon as we test the dialling console.”_

~~**~~

Ronon could have sworn he heard voices as he pulled out of his semi-sleep state, he couldn’t make out what was being said, or even who was talking, but there was a conversation going on somewhere. Curious, he pried his eyes open and looked either way down the corridor to see if anyone was in the area. There was no one and silence seemed to have settled in as though they’d watched him. Shifting forward he tried to remember where he was and why he had fallen asleep in the corridor. He had been exhausted, lifting Weir up to open the hatch in the ceiling and had dropped down to the ground and pretty much passed out.

Ronon looked up, his eyes finding the hatch instantly and he quirked a brow at the possibility that Weir was up there talking to herself. Stretching himself carefully, he climbed to his feet and made his way up the ladder to see what was going on. When his head peeked above the floor level he could see Weir standing by the window looking down at something and the screen to his right had movement on it, beyond that, there was nothing else going on in the room.

“Weir?” he said sounding just as groggy as he felt. Though he had to admit he felt better than when he’d almost starved to death, there was a level of weakness that came with this particular illness that seemed to make his muscles twitch restlessly. Ahead of him, she turned and for the first time he noticed the black radio pack against her green and white pants. Automatically he reached up for his radio and found it had vanished and for a moment he was completely confused before the memory surfaced, giving him enough insight into the fact that she had taken it.

“Did you have a good nap?”

“What’s going on?” he asked ignoring her question and climbing up the rest of the way so he could stand in the room and take a proper look around.

“We’ve got the gate up,” she said pointing down to the pier just as the loud clanking sound came and the monitor to his right flashed green once. Ronon moved forward and looked down at the gate, he expected to see it lying on its back, but instead he found it leaning against a high platform with two others raised on either side. “It’s not going anywhere now.”

“Unless the pier falls into the ocean.”

“Optimist.” Her sarcastic tone made him turn and smile at her.

“Does the dialling device work?”

“Major Lorne is about to test it, he should be in the gate room about now.”

Ronon turned back to the window and watched the gate, it was a couple of minutes later, just as Ronon was about to quirk a brow at her that the gate started to dial. He watched the chevrons light up and took a deep breath of hope that it would get a lock. He let the breath out just as the event horizon burst out and a small cheer broke out on the ground below.

“I, erm, I need to stay here,” she said a moment later. “You don’t have to stay with me, the only things here are us, the virus and Bethan and she’s not likely to hurt me.”

“You don’t know that, she brought you here.”

“Josiah brought me here. Bethan’s offered to help now that we have no choice but to stay here.”

She paused for a moment and he had to wonder if she just wanted to send him away without actually telling him to go. She had a connection to this woman, he knew that much, but he didn’t really want to leave her alone here. Not just because Sheppard would come after him with the biggest gun he could get his hands on, but because she was important to them – all of them. For him, Elizabeth Weir was salvation, the woman who let him stay in the city and he would never forget how intimidated she had been around him.

“If you don’t want me around then say so,” he said and gave a sniff. “But I don’t think you should be alone, pregnant on a planet infested with a virus – if we’re wrong and it’s just taking its time on you, you could drop like stone and there wouldn’t be anyone around to help you.”

She looked at him and he could pick out the thanks in her expression for his honesty and even the look that told him she knew he was right. At the same time though he could see she was uncomfortable with the idea that he’d be there when Bethan returned and he wondered what the woman had promised to tell her.

“Okay,” he said turning his back to the window. “But I’m coming back for you in one hour.” He held up one finger to make sure she knew the number and that there was absolutely no leeway on it.

She smiled at him and he hesitated for a beat trying to find a way out of it. There was none, he’d made the promise now and he had to follow it through. He’d do the rounds, check in on everyone and everything that she’d need updating on and then come back in an hour under the pretence of giving her that update.

~~**~~

 _“Let me get this straight,”_ Rodney’s voice, although constantly annoying to Lorne when he was calm or excited about something, took on an edge of aggravated disbelief as he tried to completely comprehend their situation. Though at this moment in time, Lorne couldn’t really blame him, he was having a hard time figuring out what was going on himself. _“Some old guy from something like 20,000 years ago took over Elizabeth and walked her through the gate to...”_

“Thule,” Lorne put in.

 _“Whatever. In the time you were there and Carson decided you couldn’t come home, the virus was contained, and then some earthquake shattered the containment area and infected all of you except Elizabeth.”_

“Doctor Weir and the containment team were, for a while, the only healthy people here, yes.”

 _“Okay,”_ Rodney said and Lorne could practically hear the sarcastic comment prickling the scientist’s brain. _“Now though, Carson’s infected, all of the nurses have given up on their suits and Elizabeth is the only person still completely healthy.”_

“Makes you wish you could get pregnant, doesn’t it,” Ashley’s sarcasm on the situation was more welcome and friendly to his ears. “Is Doctor Keller there yet?”

 _“No,”_ Rodney said tersely and Lorne had to wonder which question that was an answer to.

“Look, we could really use some equipment to let us know if these quakes are gonna get worse or not and if so, warning might be nice. Not to mention containment suits in case we have to leave.”

“And or the address of an empty world we can go to,” Ashley offered.

 _“You’re in the control room,”_ Rodney said more than asked.

“Yes,” Lorne said.

 _“And the gate is on the pier below.”_ Again, not a question.

“Yes, your point Doctor McKay?”

 _“How do you plan to get the supplies out of the gate flat out on the pier?”_

“Doctor Weir discovered that the pier was designed to lift heavy objects, she’s trapped the gate upright between the transport platforms.”

Rodney muttered the word ‘discovered’ as though it wasn’t possible anyone other than him could do such a thing. It stung the edges of his already frayed and tired mind, picking on the fact that Doctor Weir was a woman and Rodney was by no means a gentleman. The thought was ridiculous though, he knew McKay well enough to know he wouldn’t think women completely stupid, he thought everyone was equally stupid.

 _“What’s going on?”_ Keller’s voice interjected and Lorne had to bite back the ‘thank god’ that came with the redirection of the conversation.

“We have new developments over here, doc,” Lorne said instead.

 _“Such as?”_ Keller asked and Lorne just turned to Ashley.

“Well,” the nurse started. “Doctor Beckett is now showing signs of the illness,” she paused as Keller swore. “And he believes Colonel Sheppard has been shown how to get the cure.”

 _“Shown?”_ Keller asked, picking up on the titbit of information.

“Well he was unconscious at the time. But he believes that Doctor Weir’s baby has DNA that’s immune to this virus. We need to take a sample of the baby’s DNA and send it your way for confirmation.”

 _“Is Carson well enough to do that?”_

“I honestly don’t know, but I do know we don’t have a whole lot of time and it will be much easier to do without a containment suit.”

Silence on the other end told him the doctor was considering the idea of joining them on the planet. He also knew she liked that idea about as much as Zelenka liked flying.

 _“I’ll get the things together to send ASAP,”_ Keller said at last. _“If Carson can’t do it, one of you will need to do it completely under my instruction and I want to be able to see what you do.”_

“Will Doctor Weir agree to that?” Lorne asked thinking that was an extremely risky thing to propose of a pregnant woman who currently stood to lose her baby’s father.

 _“There’s not going to be much choice, Major. I can’t do the sample with the containment suit. Like it or not, there’s a better chance nothing will go wrong if I instruct someone instead of doing it in that horrible thing.”_

Lorne nodded unnecessarily, three nurses and a sick doctor. He couldn’t work out what was worse, the fact that his commander was sick to the point of death or the fact that their survival lay unborn and completely innocent in the leader of the expedition.

 _“We’ll send stuff through in one hour,”_ Rodney said harshly and almost instantly the connection was cut.

~~**~~

Elizabeth found a comfortable place to sit shortly after Ronon had left. For a moment she’d thought he’d return, had turned and looked at the stairs several times to make sure he hadn’t snuck back to check on her, but it seemed he was keeping his word. She couldn’t really blame him, the protocols John had put in place for civilians off world had been specific, she remembered smiling at the big bold letters that stated in no uncertain terms **“DO NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE”**. Every military officer on the base had signed the declaration to say they understood the rules of travel with civilians and when Teyla and Ronon had joined John’s team he’d asked them to sign it too.

That and everyone knew how much John valued certain people. Walking away from her would probably cost him sometime later on, but for now, what John didn’t know couldn’t hurt him and she’d be damned if she was going to let Ronon take the fall for her wanting to have this conversation alone.

Bethan had been there long enough to help her set the gate in place then she’d left with the promise to return in only a few minutes. She’d used the time to put her thoughts in order, or at least attempt to. She had too many questions and picking a place to start was easier said than done.

“You have questions.”

“Just a few,” Elizabeth said with a grin. It was an understatement of epic proportions.

“Where would you like to start?” Bethan asked taking a seat next to Elizabeth and looked out over the ocean in the distance.

For a moment, Elizabeth couldn’t answer, too many ideas, too many possibilities to pick just one question to ask first. If she didn’t stop the flow soon her head would explode. She turned and looked at the woman next to her and all the thoughts vanished, all except one simple and desperate question that niggled calmly at the back of her mind.

“Who am I?”

Bethan sighed. “You’re you,” she said simply. “You’re Doctor Elizabeth Olivia Weir, named after your grandparents. You’re a diplomat and the leader of the Atlantis Expedition.” It wasn’t the answer she wanted, not even close. “You’re you, Elizabeth and nothing can change that. The only thing that’s changed is your perspective. The fact that you should have been born here, or in Atlantis and that you should have been named Queen elect before you were five just as I was is permissible now. You’re personality mirrors mine, through nothing you’ve done, you’re diplomatic, strong minded, completely capable of making the right choice and putting your foot down and you have the feeling sometimes that you should be somewhere else.”

“I watched you once, sitting at your desk, working away and then suddenly you were up and walking, found yourself outside one of the labs and asking for a progress update from a scientist who was about to call you down there.” Bethan smiled. That wasn’t the first time Elizabeth had done that, she’d ended up in the gym once just before one of the men broke his arm, it had cut out the need to explain why one of the men was out for three weeks on injury sustained while training.

“What if I’d never met John?”

“It’s happened before,” Bethan said calmly and Elizabeth turned to look at her sharply. “This isn’t the first time we’ve placed you both and tried to create a connection. We got lucky this time, didn’t even need to interfere. I was practically crying from joy when they assigned you to the same area he was in. Then stubbornly, like me, you refused to let your feelings push past your professional mask.”

“We’re the only ones,” she said, almost as an afterthought. Bethan waited to see if she’d explain herself and as Elizabeth turned the idea of what she’d just thought seemed to hit home as completely true. “Of all the times you’d placed your own soul, this is the only time John and I have come together and created a child.”

Bethan smiled and nodded. Thousands of years of trying to recreate the relationship and the cure for these people and now, after it was too late, they had succeeded. That meant there was more to the reasoning behind placing them again.

“So why...”

“Because this planet is unstable,” Bethan cut her off. “Without you here and now, this virus will spread. The planet is expanding, the earthquakes are a by-product of that, but any day now the expansion can hit a critical stage and it will start to break apart. If that happens, the virus will spread through the galaxy, picking off every life it comes across and eventually moving onto the next galaxy and then the next.”

Her chest tightened at the thought of billions of people being eaten alive by this virus, suffering like John currently was until this thing finally reached Earth. That’s when she realised why she’s been led here by Josiah at this moment. Her baby was mature enough to survive the virus and the sampling of its DNA, barely four months old and it was about to save the universe. For just a moment she could have laughed at the fact that it was definitely John’s baby, if only the situation wasn’t so horrific.

Things were starting to make sense, Josiah must have known that planet’s structure was failing; he must have been desperate when he’d drawn the dreams out in her mind, forcing her into the dangerous sleep state that came very close to killing her almost six months ago.

“Why didn’t you just talk to me?” It wasn’t the first question that came to mind, but this could have been avoided. These two ancients have put their lives at risk. “You could have told us what we had to do. We could have had the cure in hand before we came here.”

Bethan looked pained, as though the thought had already been shared and denied. They’d done this on purpose, put her and John to the test.

“We had to be sure,” she said, refusing to meet Elizabeth’s eyes and eerily sounding just as Elizabeth had done trying to tell John he’d be all right a year ago when he’d been infected with Carson’s retrovirus. “We needed to make sure you were immune, that the baby was immune. Without that, there would be no cure. We had no choice to put you at risk, choosing to do so in the middle of the night in the hopes we’d get our answer and send you back before they noticed. I didn’t realise John would go after you so quickly and take so many with him.”

“If anyone dies here...” she couldn’t finish the sentence and for a moment silence fell before Bethan shifted. Elizabeth turned to look at her and she could pick the unease off the woman’s face. Someone had died and she didn’t know about it.

“Your doctor avoided telling you the truth,” Bethan said.

The name of the solider refused to come to mind, refused to pop into her head and scream the name and Elizabeth pushed up from the floor, hyper aware of the ring on her finger – his ring. ‘I borrowed it’ John had told her, he’d borrowed the ring purposely to propose to her and she hadn’t even thanked the man for it. She moved down the stairs and turned towards the control room without really thinking about her destination, she needed proof, needed to see for herself that Carson hadn’t told her someone was dead.


	12. Chapter 12

“Carson.”

“Allison,” Carson smiled at the nurse, she was fairly new to the expedition and as with all his nurses had taken a few days into convincing her to call him Carson. She hadn’t been easy, and even now she sounded unsure when she said it. He had never made it a rule, some of them never called him Carson, others only when off duty and only a few had taken to using his name all the time.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Allison said.

“I was,” he admitted, “but I have too much to do before I can afford more than an hour. I see the gate is... oddly secured. So what’s coming through?”

“Supplies to take the baby’s DNA, food and water, pain meds, along with whatever else Doctor Keller thought we might need and some equipment to get the database copied and see if we’re due anymore nasty quakes.”

“Right,” Carson said. He knew that knowing if things were going to get worse was important, but more important was getting the DNA sample and finding out if there was a cure to be had from Elizabeth and John’s baby. “Any idea where Doctor Weir is?”

“Last seen in a control room about four floors up,” Allison said turning to point up to the window now empty of people.

“Care to go track her down while I check supplies and get back to the infirmary?”

“Sure,” Allison said with a smile and turned to walk away.

“Allison,” he called to stop her for a moment. “Find the others. I’m going to need help.”

She nodded and turned back to the main city. Carson watched her for a moment before looking back at the gate. Sergeant Hadly had moved forward with Jones close behind him, they stood ready; eager to get more supplies and perhaps a little hopeful that there was something in there that could save them from a horrible and possibly painful death. He felt horrible now; he couldn’t even begin to contemplate what he’d feel like minutes from death.

The first box through was the medical supplies and Carson took it gratefully and headed back to the infirmary. Silence in the room made him think none of the nurses had arrived yet and he stepped in, amazed to find that all three of them were there and Elizabeth was back at John’s side. He managed to catch a glance at her face before she turned away from him and he had a sudden sinking feeling that she knew something he didn’t want her to know just yet. He deposited the box on the bed nearest the door and popped it open. It contained only the items they needed to get the DNA sample, scrubs, a change of clothes for Elizabeth, sterilizer and all the tools, including a portable ultrasound machine.

“Start sterilizing,” he said to Ashley as she approached him. He pulled out the clothes next and handed a pair of scrubs and Elizabeth’s hospital wear to Allison before digging back into the box for the rest of his things. He turned to drop the now empty box on the floor as Jones brought in the second one. He gave the soldier a smile and turned to find a strange, though familiar woman standing on the other side of the bed. “Hello,” he said, drawing the attention of both the nurses still in the room.

“Doctor Beckett,” she said with a friendly smile and Carson couldn’t avoid the shudder that ran down his spine at how much she sounded like Elizabeth. “I’m...”

“Bethan,” Penny said. Bethan turned to look at her and Penny visibly straightened.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?” Elizabeth asked, emerging from a side room at just the right moment.

“I wanted to observe and instruct the doctor on how to gain the cure from the baby.”

Elizabeth didn’t respond and Carson watched as she moved over to the bed without looking at him and slid up onto it. Penny, wary of their visitor, moved over to help her settle back and covered her over before baring Elizabeth’s stomach.

“Okay,” Carson said, accepting the gloves Allison offered him. “Elizabeth...”

“Don’t talk, just do it,” she said and Carson knew she didn’t want to hear the explanations and what-not that he would tell her.

“Then all I want to say is that if a quake should happen while we’re doing this, I need you to stay calm and don’t tense at all. I’ll pull back to avoid any damage to you and the baby.” Elizabeth nodded and he looked up to Ashley, standing patiently with the ultrasound in her hands. She moved forwards and set herself up so Carson could see what he was doing while Allison moved to Elizabeth’s head.

“So...” Elizabeth said and Carson glanced up to see her quirk a brow at Bethan.

“Are you sure you want me to explain while he’s doing this?”

“Carson’s good enough to block out what he doesn’t need to hear,” Elizabeth said making him smile. “And there are four other pairs of ears listening.”

Bethan nodded. “Very well, then in addition to curing your own people you need to know what to do here in order to stop this contagion spreading all over the universe. Our confinement was good enough to keep it contained, but this planet will not last much longer.”

As if on cue the tremor rumbled across the ground below Carson’s feet and he took a deep breath.

“Just a little pinch, Elizabeth,” he said, turning his concentration to the task and pushed the needle in at Elizabeth’s stomach.

“You have charges, explosives?”

“C4,” John said from the bed behind her and she turned to smile at him. “It’s like putty.”

“That’s good,” Bethan said, a spark of excitement in her voice as Carson pressed the needle carefully against the lining of Elizabeth’s womb. “A vile, like that,” she pointed to the one poised to take the baby’s DNA, “filled with the cure will be enough to stop the virus spreading. You mix it with the... putty,” she said checking over her shoulder to see if that was right, “place the charges where I tell you and the city and its current infected will be completely submerged with the cure and destroyed.”

“How much C4 do we need?”

“You’re not discussing that with him,” Elizabeth piped in.

“There is another who would be able to work out how much is required?” Bethan asked.

“Lorne can work it out and get the charges sorted and set.”

“Then I will speak with him soon. As for your health and those who are here with you, you will need to be given the cure as well as them. You are immune, but the baby’s immunity is built on your own and will only last her up to seven years after she is born. Doctor Vilma suggested that it would last her only a total of 8 years from date of infection until...” Bethan trailed off and Carson looked up quickly to see her turn her face away from them. He took a deep breath and looked back at the ultrasound monitor to finally take the sample. “You need to separate only the parts other people can receive, I’m afraid I do not have the medical knowledge to tell you what it’s called, but separate that and mix it with something that will fight infection. The strongest thing you have.”

“Linezolid,” Carson muttered as he slipped the vile in place.

“We can’t give that to Doctor Weir, can we?”

“Not really, it’s amongst the drugs that are unclassified for use with pregnant women.”

“It only has to be given once,” Bethan said. “It took our doctors thousands of years watching your medicines to determine this cure.”

Carson was thankful he’d just withdrawn the needle from Elizabeth’s stomach as that made him look sharply at Bethan. She’d pretty much just told him that they had never tested this treatment.

“It will work,” Bethan said.

“All this time,” Penny said, “and all it would take was a DNA sample and an antibiotic?”

“A specific DNA sample, only from an unborn child and only from someone who is immune.”

“How are you doing?” Carson asked ignoring Penny and Bethan for a moment to check on his patient.

“I’ve been better,” Elizabeth said. “Could do with a drink.” Carson smiled and stepped back as Allison appeared with a fresh bottle of water.

“You need to stay where you are for about an hour, Elizabeth,” he said pulling off the gloves and watching as Ashley stored the sample in the protective box they’d been sent. “Just relax for a while, Penny can stay here with you and help you up carefully in an hour’s time.”

“Okay,” Elizabeth said. “Ask them to get the C4 ready when you send the sample through.”

“Aye, we need to know how much.”

“I best go and talk with Major Lorne then,” Bethan said and vanished silently from the room.

~~**~~

Ronon had already done this round once already, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop and sit down, he had a horrible feeling that stopping would mean collapsing on a bed somewhere and not getting up until next month. Which is what made him decide to make the rounds again. He turned out on to the pier and strolled, almost too casually up to Sergeant Hadly, who had taken to doing his duty sitting on the ground against one of the raised platforms.

“What’s going on?” he asked, leaning against the tower beside the man.

“Well, medical supplies and food are in. Nurses and Beckett are with Doctor Weir taking the baby’s DNA or whatever. Lorne’s in the control room trying to read through Doctor McKay’s instructions on copying the database with compression, Jones is on the land.” He pulled himself up enough to point towards the patch of land to their right. “Attempting to follow Zelenka’s instructions on quake tracking. Teyla and Sheppard are in the infirmary, probably unconscious where I’d like to be and you are wandering around.”

“Descriptive,” Ronon said.

“Did I miss anything?” Hadly asked, his eyes closed again and head back against one of the support pillars.

“Yeah,” Ronon said. “Who’s she?”

It certainly wasn’t Elizabeth, last he’d seen she was dressed in green and while, not pink. Not to mention, he’d never seen Weir in a dress.

“Beats me,” Hadly said. “Looks like Doctor Weir though.”

Ronon studied the woman’s face as they got closer and quirked a brow at her as he realised the man was right. This must be the previous queen of Atlantis.

“Hey,” Lorne said stopping a couple of steps away. “Hadly, no falling asleep, you might end up in the path of the gate and we’ve already lost too many people here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Ashley? She should have been here before us.”

“I’m here,” Ashley said joining them as if she’d literally just followed them out the door. “Can we do this quick, I need to go do rounds with Allison, and she’s sorting out meds at the moment.”

“Why can’t Penny do it?” Lorne asked.

“She’s Weir sitting,” Ashley said with a grin. “She needs to stay still for a while, Penny’s been charged with making sure she doesn’t wander off.”

Ronon grinned at that, it had become, perhaps unfairly, an internal joke that Elizabeth had a wandering habit. He suspected that when this was over that joke would quickly drop off and be replaced with the pool on the sex of her baby, Zelenka had already mentioned something about that. Before he could finish the musing, the gate beside them dialled and he had to wonder if it was in coming or out going. He reached up to switch his radio on out of habit and realised it was still with Elizabeth. As if sensing the move, Ashley dug a hand into her pocket and handed him the radio.

He listened carefully as Ashley explained about the sample and what needed to be done and quirked a brow when she carefully avoided answering the ‘how long do I have’ question. Sheppard was in the worst condition and so long as he could wake up now and again, they didn’t have too serious a problem. Last time he’d checked in with John had been about an hour ago and he’d been wide awake and asking for food and Elizabeth.

When the medical side of the conversation was over, Lorne stepped up to talk to Sergeant Markham. He spent a few minutes explaining what he needed to do to the C4 moulds before shaping them into specific weights and setting up the charges to be activated with a 20 second delay. The idea, he could guess, would be to set the charges, get everyone through the gate and flip the switch before vanishing himself. With 20 seconds he could get through the gate, out the other side and shut the gate down before the charges went off.

He was however confused about the reasons behind the mixture of the explosive before it was set up, but he knew better than to ask. For now, he was happy just to wander around and make sure everyone was okay – though he’d be back here to help them set the charges, purely for something to do.

~~**~~

As soon as the nurse had helped Elizabeth from the bed she was out of the room. It wasn’t that she was restless or hated the infirmary – she missed John, being with him and even talking to him – but her thoughts were trapped on the things Bethan had said about someone being dead. She headed for the gate room, that was where things had gone wrong and it was probably there that she’d find out what happened and to whom. She already suspected that Peters had been the unfortunate victim in this, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes, be sure that she had actually killed someone. Because no matter what way she looked at it, she was responsible for the death of one of her people.

As the leader it was her choices and actions that inevitably meant life or death and she’d promised herself long ago that while casualties were likely she’d never let them be unnecessary. As it was, she was needlessly risking the lives of 11 people and she couldn’t stop her heart from thudding away in her chest at the thought of losing any of them to this horrible plague or even because of the quakes here on this ghost outpost.

She followed the corridors, making changes in her course as needed where ceilings had collapsed, until she reached the gate room. The first thing that caught her attention was the lack of gate, even if she knew where it currently was the room had a whole different way about it without the gate. Then the gaping hole in the floor where the gate had once stood, it was massive and she’d never even considered that it wasn’t one hundred percent secure. She turned to see who was in the room; Carson was over one side with Sergeant Hadly hunting through the medical supplies for something while Lorne sat up in the control room at one of the remaining terminals.

Below the control room, though, lay Lieutenant Peters. She felt her heart seize the second she caught sight of him, laying prone, still and ever so pale. Someone had covered him with a sheet up to his neck and lay his arms carefully down at his sides. It was peaceful, too peaceful and she felt the tear slide down her cheek before she could even comprehend that it was painful to see.

“Oh no,” Hadly said and she felt Lorne’s eyes on her almost instantly and swallowed hard. There was movement to her side and she knew Carson had taken several steps towards her, but just as he did, she took several steps towards Peters.

“How?” It was all she could really say without choking on her own emotions.

“The last big quake, the dialling console fell from the control room before he could move.” Carson’s soft voice didn’t make that any less painful and she bit her lip in an attempt to keep the emotions at bay. She knew she’d failed to stop herself from crying before she’d even managed to take a step forwards. The sob she let out was half choked in the attempt and she was stopped from reaching Peters by the quick footwork of Major Lorne.

“Ma’am,” he said softly. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to upset yourself with this,” he said blocking not only her path but her sight of the dead soldier.

She looked up at him, measuring the fear and pain in his eyes before she mouthed ‘I killed him’ and turned towards the only way out of the room.

~~**~~

Evan tried hard to follow her, stopped for just a second by Carson, who wasn’t sure anyone should follow and if someone should, then it should be him. But Lorne hadn’t argued semantics; he’d just said ‘I’m going’ and sprinted off out of the room behind her. He’d spent the last hour staring at the computer in the control room, he’d been desperate for most of that for a distraction, but this was the last thing he’d wanted. They’d tried to keep her away from the gate room, hoping that she wouldn’t have to find out about Peters until they, at the very least, had the cure in their possession.

He lost sight of Elizabeth pretty quick, mostly due to the fact that she knew the changes in this city compared to Atlantis better than anyone, that and to his amazement, she moved pretty quick for four months pregnant. He rounded another corner sure she’d come this way and stopped. There was at least half a dozen ways to go from here and only one of them was a dead end.

Wishing for a life signs detector, Lorne picked the route that took him along the edge of the tower, hoping she’d headed for a balcony somewhere and knowing that the layout in comparison to Atlantis would make this the route to her own quarters – that was assuming they were in the same place. He looked out every window, paused at every balcony door until he’d reached the room in a similar placement to Elizabeth’s quarters back home.

He paused at the door, wondering if she’d actually answer him and if it was even worth ringing the chime. Deciding the best thing would be to ring first and then go in when no one answered he reached up to the panel and was instantly stopped.

“She’s not in there,” the smooth voice made him shudder – as it had done the first time he’d heard it. He turned to see Bethan standing looking out the window over the ocean. “When I lived here, I had the housing master hold that room permanently, the best place to run and hide when I needed time to think or a place to cry where no one could see or bother me. I stopped using it when I married Josiah,” she said turning to face him. “The room we had together had a balcony, completely isolated from everything, the only way someone could see onto the balcony was to be on a ship at sea with a seeing glass.” She pointed around the corner. “Very end of the corridor, straight ahead.”

“Thanks,” Lorne said seconds before she vanished. He turned down the corridor and walked casually to the door Bethan had indicated. He didn’t hesitate this time, not daring to put thought into this and talk himself into trading places with Carson. This was his job, this was his moment to tell her just what Peters had wanted to ask her. He opened the door and moved into the room. It was massive, obviously once owned by someone of a monarchy; the wall to his right was covered with old, worn books and scrolls, looking very much like a hall of history in any high class library. The furniture was carefully placed to give space to move and for kids to play. One or two abandoned toys had been kicked against the wall and Lorne spared a moment to pick one up and dust it off.

“It’s a jack-in-the-box,” Elizabeth said, her voice strained with emotion. Lorne turned; he hadn’t seen her sitting in the corner of the room in a chair, the covering that had protected it now on the floor beside her feet.

“They had jack-in-the-boxes?”

“Not exactly the same,” she said turning her head to look out the window.

He studied her for a moment, her hands resting on the arms of the chair, back straight looking as though she belonged in a long flowing dress and throne. He’d have bowed and pledged his life, she was better than her profile said and she was quick to adapt. He looked away and then sharply back at her left hand, her ring finger was empty, she’d taken off Peters’ ring and he hoped to any god that she hadn’t dropped it somewhere – like off the balcony.

“He was a needless death,” she said and choked back a sob. “He shouldn’t have died, no one should.” Silence drifted in through the time he took to try and work out what she was getting at and how to respond. “This is my fault.”

“No,” he said harshly, but she didn’t turn to him, didn’t even flinch. “No it’s not.”

“I brought you here,” she said and shook her head. “I brought him here, all of you. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be safe back in Atlantis, probably asleep in his own bed.”

He dropped the box, not caring for the sound it would make on the floor and moved across the room before he could contemplate why he needed to be closer. He dropped down onto his knees just in front of her, feeling oddly like a servant trying to comfort a distressed queen. Or perhaps one of her ladies in waiting. He pushed the thought away and swallowed the laugh that tickled the back of his throat.

“Josiah brought you here,” he corrected. “This is all his fault, us, Peters, everything. Hell, if we’re gonna follow that line of thinking this is Bethan’s fault before Josiah’s. She’s the one whose memories are in you. And if you wanna take another step back, it starts with the people who put her soul in you.” Elizabeth turned back to look at him, her eyes filled with water. “If I was gonna place blame, it’d be on them first,” he said watching a couple of drops of liquid drift down her cheek. “Then Bethan, Josiah, Sheppard for waking me, the guy who promoted me to Major, the one before him who put me up to captain and so on until...” her smile broke through even though the tears continued, “...I can blame myself for joining the forces in the first place.”

He looked down for a moment, fiddling with the seams of his pants as he considered his next words carefully.

“Peters never blamed you.” He couldn’t look up, knowing the words would pang just a little on her heart strings. She sniffed and he looked up again, drawing his eyes to her left hand. “Elizabeth,” he said, daringly using her first name. “Where’s the ring?”

Elizabeth turned to him for a moment, reached up and wiped away the tears before turning her attention down the side of the room. Evan followed her gaze and spotted a table in the corner beside the door, on top of which sat a bowl, elegantly designed. He stood up and moved over, looking into the shallow basin. The ring sat there, carefully placed in the middle. He picked it up just as his radio came alive.

 _“Heads up, if I’m reading this right, something shaky this way comes,”_ Jones said.

He turned back, ignoring the looming cloud out the window that had probably stopped Elizabeth from stepping out of the room and crossed back to the chair.

“This belongs to you,” he said. She started to shake her head and he could feel the protest coming. “Peters told me before he died, he had no one to give it to, he wanted you to keep it, pass it down your family,” he glanced down at her stomach. “Now the Weir-Sheppard family heirloom like it was his.”

Elizabeth’s hand went up to her face and for a moment she covered her face from him, almost in shame before she dropped it back down and pushed off the chair to join him on the floor. He could see her struggling and her hands shaking, she was trapped for just a few minutes in the want to honour the request and the fear it was the wrong thing to do after how he’d died. Evan made the choice for her, taking her hand in his and slipping the ring back into place on her ring finger.

She had her jaw clenched and tears rolling down her cheeks when she looked back at him and instinctively he reached out and pulled her into a hug in the hopes of comforting her.

Too consumed with Elizabeth, Evan missed which came first, but he knew that when it happened his heart skipped several beats and Elizabeth stopped crying almost instantly. A bright flash of light flooded the room, the dark clouds outside giving way to the weirdest streak of lightning he’d ever seen and a rumble, almost thunder-like that crackled just enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Oh no,” she said pushing back from him, but keeping one hand clenched tight in the material of his sleeve.

“What?”

“My first dreams,” she said. Another flash of light. It didn’t matter how hard he squeezed his eyes closed, it was still just like having a pen light in your open eye. Bright and bleeding in as though it could penetrate every open pore in your body.

“First dreams?” he asked, knowing she meant the ones Josiah had shown her, but not understanding the connection between the storm and the dream.

“When they first started, they’d always begin with the flash of light and the shaking of the ground before they settled into something... else,” she blushed slightly and it vanished into paleness as the ground below them rumbled with the thunder. “It got worse each time.”

“This is what they were warning you about,” Evan said, making the connection a split second quicker than he’d liked to, whatever happened to ignorance is bliss?

Elizabeth pushed up onto her knees, using his body as a balance point. As soon as she was stable, he got to his feet, not daring to let go of her arms, but letting his hands slip down to her wrists he turned and looked out the window. The day had been completely covered by the clouds; they were so thick anyone stepping on to the planet would have assumed it was the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day. Another flash of light, the crackle of the thunder and the rumble of the ground and he tightened his hands on her wrists.

“All in one place,” Evan said. Letting go with one hand he reached up and activated his radio. “Everyone to the infirmary, we’re not taking chances, we stick together.” He got a smattering of confirmations as he pulled Elizabeth to her feet and as the ground rumbled below then guided her back to the door and down the corridor.


	13. Chapter 13

“... the seismic activity was growing quickly; the thing was off the charts, going completely nutso.”

“Now there’s a technical term,” Lorne said interrupting the conversation as he stepped into the infirmary with Elizabeth. Ronon watched her for a moment, pale as a ghost and a look on her face that told him she knew exactly how bad this was going to get and she hadn’t told a soul. She crossed the group, heading for John’s bed at just the moment the lightning illuminated the room and his hands automatically reached for her as the rumble shuddered up his legs.

Stable, she moved on and Ronon turned back to the conversation in front of him, only half listening to the discussion about the C4 and where it should go. He’d need to know, he was aware of that. The faster they set the charges the quicker this could all be over, but at the same time the conversation about John’s strangely stable health was reaching his ears. He figured the Elizabeth look-a-like had something to do with it, after all Carson had told them the virus had infested his body quicker than anything he’d ever seen, so John Sheppard should have been dead long ago. On impulse, Ronon turned, took the few steps to Elizabeth’s side and plucked the radio pack from her pyjama bottoms before unhooking the ear piece from her shoulder.

“How bad is it gonna get?” he asked her as she turned to him. He knew by the glance she gave over his shoulder that everyone else had heard that question.

“The planet’s dying,” she said. “They knew long ago that it wouldn’t last forever, they were leaving because of it. They were meant to come back for their people, with a cure, and then dismantle the structure. Back then they had plenty of time to do it, but now...”

“The planet’s falling apart,” Bethan said finishing Elizabeth’s sentence. “The core became unstable during an experiment thousands of years ago, they predicted between 10,000 and 12,000 years until it became too late to stop. We never found a cure; we never found a way to undo the mistake we made here. But if the planet fails with the cure alive, the implosion will spread the virus throughout the galaxy.”

“Gate’s active,” Lorne announced. “Keller and additional military personnel inbound.”

“You should stay here with Sheppard, Teyla and Carson,” he told her as she turned back to Sheppard.

~~**~~

“Inside, quickly, move it, move it, move it,” Lorne shouted as each person came out of the gate, they’d all been told it was a short drop off the gate and they needed to run for cover quickly. He hadn’t stopped anyone, just instructing them to get in quick, though it hadn’t passed his notice that not one person stepping out of the gate was wearing an isolation suit. One officer had pre-empted a group of nurses, each and every person through carried a box and each one of them stumbled out, gave a short cry of shock at the amount of rain and took off running down the pier. Keller was the last person through and she stumbled for a moment before standing up and looking around.

“Where’s Doctor Beckett?” she asked as the gate shut down behind her. Lorne grabbed her arm to keep her moving and started a fast pace back to the city, he was soaked to the skin and would rather not add pneumonia to his list of problems.

“Infirmary,” he replied, keeping the pace. “Layout’s pretty much like Atlantis,” he said and stepped gratefully into the dry. “You’ll have to find your own way there, get them sorted; we’ll join you when we’re done.”

“No,” she said. “You lot first, this vaccine has a short life span, that’s why we’re not in suits, and it would take too long fumbling with the large fingers.” She grabbed a vial out of the box a nurse was holding and readied the needed dose in record time. It only took a few minutes to do all the guys that were there. “Atlantis is isolating the gate room, we go back as we are and keep ourselves separate until we’re absolutely sure this stuff works.”

“Infirmary’s our meeting point. When we’re finished, that’s where we’ll be heading. You’ll have to find your own way there. If the ground starts shaking stand still and watch out for falling debris.”

“Rest of the medical supplies are there,” one of the other men said pointing to a small stack next to one of the nurses. “This is the C4, modified as requested.”

“You get the plans?” he asked as the medical team picked up their supplies, there was a lot less of that than there was explosive.

“Yes sir, we have it worked out, the quickest way to distribute the explosive with control activation is three boxes each in a specific section of the city, the largest concentrates in the medical areas.”

“Excellent, let’s get to work so we can get the hell out of here.”

“How exactly is this gonna work? What’s the idea behind this?”

“The vaccine spreads thinner when heated, the idea is to decimate the city and spread the stuff as far as we possibly can,” he picked up a container and popped the lid. “Which is why the largest packets go in the medical bays and the edge of the city. The information I was given came from an ancient, she knew this city backwards, all its weakest points and the amount of explosive that would be required to leave nothing intact. We’ve pretty much just been handed the plans to blow up Atlantis on a much smaller scale.”

“Times by three to blow ourselves up if required.”

“More like times by nine,” Lorne said heading off down one corridor. “This place is just the center section of Atlantis. Don’t be shocked if a woman appears and tells you you’re putting it in the wrong place – just follow her instructions,” he called back.

~~**~~

“Start with Elizabeth and John,” Carson said after the short welcomes of the medical team. He hadn’t really felt like it was worth anything more than a hello and get to work, he felt horrible right now and that was nothing to what John and Teyla were going through, not to mention the men who had so far done all the work while feeling this bad, if not worse.

“Is everyone showing signs of the illness?”

“Not everyone,” Penny said. “Other than Doctor Weir, I still feel fine.”

“It seems to affect everyone at different rates,” Carson said. “John’s the furthest along, followed by Teyla, but I’m not far behind either of them and I was exposed later.”

“Okay, well as a precaution, Doctor Biro is working with the lab techs to produce more of this and is vaccinating everyone there. Each of these vials contains enough for three doses, I have no idea how quickly they will take effect or even if they work, but the idea here is to get everyone out anyway. So let’s inject, get to the pier, into suits and through the gate.”

“Right,” Carson said rolling up his sleeve as a nurse approached with needle and cure. He smiled at her before turning his attention to Keller, who was injecting John with the vaccine. Another nurse approached Elizabeth and she brushed her off. “Everyone, Elizabeth,” Carson said pointedly.

“You can do mine last.”

“You’re immune, yes,” Carson said. “But the baby isn’t.”

“And the baby won’t start to feel the effects until its eight years old, so you can do mine last.”

The ground began to rumble again as Carson pulled his shirt down. Ignoring it, he pushed out of his seat, grabbed the needle from the nurse and roughly pulled Elizabeth’s arm away from her lap. Her hand trapped under his arm, he yanked her sleeve up and jabbed the needle into place. She winced, as he expected she would, but he was tired and wanted nothing more than for this nightmare to be over and he was just a little too annoyed to take the ‘brave leader’ route with her.

“Hey, that’s my wife to be you’re sticking needles into,” John said, awake for the first time in almost a day.

“John,” Elizabeth said, pulling her arm from Carson’s grip as he removed the needle.

“Are we there yet?” Elizabeth gave a short laugh as Carson moved away to help inject his own nurses. “What’s going on?”

“Hopefully you’ve just been given a cure.”

“Hopefully?”

“Well, we’re the guinea pigs.”

“Is that why my throat feels furry?”

Elizabeth grinned at him for a split second before she hummed and responded. “That or the wild party you threw last night.”

“Ah,” John said. “That explains the headache and lack of memory, too.”

“How many others need to be inoculated?” Carson asked turning from Elizabeth to Jennifer. He never got the chance to look her in the face before the flash of light flooded the room, it lasted longer than the previous times and he could feel the rumble at his feet before it was over.

“Just the people here,” Jennifer said, her voice rising above the quickly growing rumble.

The ground shuddered below him and Carson spared a moment looking around, slightly confused that the simple quick shudder was all they were going to get for the extended flash and low growl of the planet.

“I don’t think we have much time,” Elizabeth said, turning her attention back to him. He would have acted faster under normal circumstances, but the look of horror on Elizabeth’s face took him back a pace or two and he hesitated for a moment longer than he would have liked before he finally picked up another needle and moved towards Penny.

“Can you get up, Colonel?” Jennifer asked as Carson carefully vaccinated the last of his nurses. He spared a glance to Teyla, who was slowly prying her eyes open and smiling up at the nurse who had injected her. When he turned to look at John, he was a little shocked to see the colour return to his cheeks as he sat up, whatever this cure was it worked damn fast, though he still felt as though he could sleep for a month – maybe two. “Just take it easy, we need to get down to the pier.”

“We going swimming?” John asked turning himself to face Elizabeth and leaning forward to slide off the bed. Carson knew he had said something to her as he got up and the back of his mind screamed ‘skinny dipping’ at him as Elizabeth chuckled.

“Dream on,” she said helping him to his feet and heading for the door.

~~**~~

“Why not?” John asked as Elizabeth guided him out the room. “Skinny dipping is a great idea.” He gave her a charming smile – or at least he hoped it was charming, when you felt this bad, you never could tell.

“Sure,” Elizabeth said a little too eagerly. “If the water temperature isn’t below freezing, the sky isn’t black as ink and it’s not raining, thundering and lightning while the ground shakes about below you.”

“You make it sound so poetic.” He said turning a corner with her and taking more and more of his own weight as they moved. “You all right?” he asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “Wishing this had never started,” she added and he caught the edge of her tone as it dipped down to regret. Turning another corner he stopped her, pulling her to the side as the medical team and Teyla approached. He nodded to Carson as the doctor gave him a questioning look and waited for them to move a little further down the corridor.

“What happened?”

Her head dropped and for a moment he was worried she wouldn’t answer the question. When she did say something it was so quiet he thought he’d heard it wrong.

“Peters died,” she breathed. It took a moment for the words to actually sink in and for a moment – just a moment, he couldn’t actually believe it. When she looked up at him there were tears in her eyes and for the first time, he noticed the faint tracks down her cheeks. “Crushed by the dialling computer in one of the big quakes,” she managed before letting out the sob that drew his arms around her. Elizabeth gripped at his sides as he pulled her in close.

“I take it we have to leave him?” he asked and she nodded against his chest. He swallowed, thinking carefully through his still fogged mind about this next question. “What about the ring?” Instinctively her left hand tightened in his shirt.

“He told Lorne I should keep it. The first Sheppard family heirloom, unless there’s one you’re not telling me about.”

“There is,” John said trying hard not to smile. “Good looks are always passed on,” he said failing miserably and breaking out into a grin as Elizabeth gave a short laugh and slapped his chest before moving away.

“We should catch up with the others.”

“Yeah,” John said pushing away from the wall. “And get out of here at last.”

Almost as if the planet was daring him to say it, the city lit up, the flash of lightning seeming to get longer with each passing minute and the rumble of the thunder began to seep into the ground and push through the quake that was quickly building. And by building, John meant toppling. He could feel the ground sway and buck, forcing him to the side and slightly forward. He took hold of Elizabeth, trying to steady her despite the difficulty he was having with his own feet and quickly found himself thrust towards the wall in front of him. Elizabeth staggered backwards under his weight and he barely had a passing thought of the problem squashing her against the wall could cause before she hit hard and let out a shout of pain. John barely managed to plant his hands on either side of her, stopping himself from landing on top of her.

“Shit,” he cursed sharply, listening to the sound of metal creaking painfully. “You okay?” he asked, more shouted over the sound of the quake and the city’s groan.

“My back’s gonna pay for that later.”

The ground dropped down towards the center and John turned away from Elizabeth to look out the nearest window. Instantly he wished he hadn’t done it, he could see the next tower tipping horribly away from there, looking as though it was either posing for the leaning tower of Pisa picture or having a fight with gravity to stay vertical.

“Come on,” he said, carefully easing her away from the wall. “We need to get down the stairs before they collapse.” Again the planet was playing with his words and as he turned to the stairwell he saw the opposite tower win the gravity battle and straighten up for just a moment. He’d moved only a couple of steps closer when he heard the shouts for them from below and the metal tower swayed over in their direction.

A black streak came up the stairs and before John could react he was being pulled back around the corner and down the corridor. He was jolted to the side hard, hit the wall and then the ground before sound of shattering glass reached his ears and the tower seemed to drop suddenly to one side. He heard Lorne shout something before someone grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him quickly along the floor to another corner.

He looked around, trying to find Elizabeth as he was hurled into a room and the door shut swiftly behind him. Panic quickly set in, he had no idea where Elizabeth was or what was going on. The tower tipped a little more and John slid back along the floor to the door as Sergeant Miles followed him at a staggered run. That was when he realised, the collision of one tower into the other and the still rumbling ground was tipping the tower over. If they’d stayed in the corridor, they’d have been given a great view of the ocean – seeping in through all the windows and cracks.

He turned to Miles, and then turned quickly to look around the room, there was another door on the other side of the room and he realised, perhaps a little later than he should that he was in a lab.

“We need to keep moving,” he said, hoping to high heaven that Elizabeth and whoever was with her had the same idea. He reached out and grabbed the fixed table in the middle of the room and heaved himself up over it to the other side. He could have collapsed there and then, still weak from whatever the virus had been, and he barely had the strength to contemplate the severity of the situation, let alone get out of it. Wondering when he’d turned into McKay, John turned to help Miles up over the side and then indicated the door, almost completely above them now.

It wasn’t until they’d managed to get the door open that John realised they had stopped, and so had the quakes, the tower must have been tilted at an almost horizontal angle over the city, either held up by a few strong pieces of metal or leaning vicariously on something equally as strong. With the door open, he could hear people shouting, Ronon, Hadly and Carson first then Lorne’s voice from closer caught his attention.

“Lab corridor,” he called back. “Need one of the docs here,” he added and John’s mind shot to the fact that with Lorne was Elizabeth. He turned back to Miles as the man pulled off his vest and dropped it onto the side of the table.

“Going up, sir?” he said linking his fingers together to create a cradle. John smiled and slipped his foot into the cradle, exchanged a glance with the man and pushed up for the door-ceiling. He managed to grab the door and pull himself halfway up when his exhaustion caught up with him and thankfully a hand took hold of his arm and effortlessly pulled him up.

“Thanks,” John said, standing up to face Ronon. The Satedan just grinned before flattening himself on the ground to help Miles up. John turned away to look for Elizabeth, setting his eyes on the back of Lorne he felt a slight amount of hope that she was perfectly fine, Lorne had several pieces of shrapnel sticking out of his back and arms, cuts slowly oozed blood down his uniform and Carson was already tending to a long slice in his arm. Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen.

Crossing to the open door way where Lorne sat with his legs over the edge, John looked down. Elizabeth was lying across the back of the desk, fixed as the one in his room had been. It looked as though they’d taken a beating on their way up. She had her knees raised, and a hand lying across her stomach and her eyes closed.

“Elizabeth?” he asked, as Ronon and Miles moved to either side of the door frame. She opened her eyes and looked up at him with a faint smile, and as she turned her head a little to look right at him, he noticed the drop of blood slithering down her hairline. He turned to Lorne, almost ready to shout at him.

“Only thing in that room that was fixed was the table, I was a little too slow in moving her under it. She’s only got the cut on her head and probably just a mild concussion – I tried to shield her as much as I could,” Lorne said looking down at the cut on his arm. “Something hit me in the back, heavy and hard. Forced me forward and I didn’t get a chance to steady myself.”

John just nodded and watched as Ronon lowered Miles into the room, his feet landing on either side of Elizabeth.

“You wanna go down doc?” Ronon asked.

“Aye,” Carson said.

John could hear the ‘I don’t really want to’ in his voice, who would want to be lowered down by the wrists. Carson was probably looking forward to it as much as Elizabeth was at being pulled up in much the same way. He didn’t even want to contemplate how Lorne had gotten Elizabeth on top of the table and for that matter, how he’d then pulled himself out of the room with all his cuts.

John watched as Carson was lowered into the room and did a quick check of Elizabeth. Words he didn’t hear were exchanged before both Carson and Miles helped her to her feet. She stumbled as the ground gave a quick shake, rattle and roll and John had never been more thankful for a man’s reflexes as Miles stopped her from stepping off the very small space they were on.

“We really need to get out of here,” Carson said and John nodded along with Elizabeth.

“Let’s get going, then,” Ronon said reaching down into the room.

“Let us do the work,” Carson said to Elizabeth as John settled himself down on the floor. He reached down, taking one of her hands as Ronon took the other and between them they pulled her up. John moved away from the door with her, leaving Ronon to pull the others out, he wanted to make sure she was alright, he hadn’t been there to protect her, and he’d have to find a way to thank Lorne later. Against the wall – or floor, he’d lost track of what it was, he wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, holding her tight.

“I’m alright, John.” She was trying hard to reassure him, convince him that nothing serious had happened. It was a hard sell as everything seemed to go wrong all at the same time for them.

“Let’s go,” Ronon said sharply before he could even consider a response. He pulled himself up off the ground/wall and helped Elizabeth up before following them down the corridor – or what was left of it.

~~**~~

She’d never ached so much in her life, even the broken leg she’d had as a kid was nothing in comparison to the pain she was in right now. Her eyelids hurt to blink, which only went to show that the exhaustion of the last three days had finally caught up with her and was now just playing games with her mentality. Though she had yet to determine just how much discomfort it would take before she passed out – either from pain or the weight of tiredness that lingered.

Crawling through half a tower that was literally, in all ways, shapes and forms facing the wrong direction had been an arduous task, at the least – and the worst thing about it, was she hadn’t been able to pull her own weight. With Carson and John telling her she had to be careful because of the baby and Lorne, Ronon and Miles lugging her up over each section she was surprised any of them were on their feet.

Though she suspected that the person sent to the control room was in just as much pain right now. Thankfully for them, the control tower was still vertical, if you could call the leaning tower of Thule vertical. They obviously hadn’t reached the control room yet, though with the electrical storm interfering with the radios they had no way of knowing when he would get there. Poised ready to go at the bottom of the tower, their supplies distributed evenly between everyone except her and Ronon – who had the glorious job of getting her from point a (where she stood) and point b (on the other side of the wormhole) without extra injury and as quickly as possible.

Everyone time someone mentioned the trip back, she had a random method in her head of just how Ronon Dex, big strong and anything but graceful, would complete that task without squashing her or hurting her. Though the hurting bit would be understandable to a point. They were first on the evac list, by order of Carson, John, Teyla and shockingly Lorne, and all they had to do was wait for the gate to dial, count to three and then run.

She turned back to the window, looking down at the almost pitch black exterior of the city and tried to work out if they’d see the gate dial. Teasingly the first chevron lit up and she squinted at the second to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. When the second came to life she had a strange thought that they would be leaving another person behind.

“How exactly,” she said turning to whoever was nearest, “is Sergeant Banes getting down here to get through the gate?”

“Abseiling, ma’am,” the marine said. “He’s got harness equipment, he’s probably already set up so he can dial and just drop out the window.”

There was another entertaining thought to add to her collection. She could write a novel on all the weird things they’d had to do while here. Everything from being handed down a broken set of stairs to being dropped – literally – into a cradle of arms from about twelve feet up. There was a reason she never became a cheerleader after all.

“Everyone ready?” Lorne called from nearby, making her jump just a little too much and turn to him. For a moment she had to figure out what they were getting ready for, and then she turned back to the window and found that the gate was sporting a stable wormhole. A hand on her arm tugged her towards the door and she didn’t need to look up to know Ronon was getting ready for the go. He set her in the doorway and adjusted his grip on her arm, there was no way she could keep pace with him, she’d trip and fall and he’d end up dragging her unacceptably to the gate. It wasn’t until the sound made her look up that she realised just how they were getting her halfway down the pier and through the gate quickly.

A pair of feet came into view and Ronon tugged her forward. Normally she’d have something to say about being manhandled, but under the circumstances she was willing to give it go in favour of getting the hell out of Thule. The door opened and before she could even contemplate how hard the rain was coming down, she was thrust into it at great speed, Ronon’s tight grip on one arm made her stagger for just a second before the other hand took hold of her and she found herself practically flying down the pier with her feet moving quicker than she knew possible. The gate came flying towards her and barely a pace before it; Ronon turned, wrapped his arms around her and twisted into the event horizon.

She didn’t remember actually closing her eyes, but she had never been so thankful to open them in Atlantis. The sound of the klaxons and the voices of familiar people was comforting and she almost relaxed before more military hands grabbed her and she was pulled off her back – consequently off Ronon – and to one side. A containment suited Stackhouse made sure she was stable where she stood and asked through the muffled helmet if she was okay. She just nodded, thankful that the ground was solid and the air was dry.

The medical team ushered her to the nearest gurney and she let them guide her away as she turned back to the gate. Ronon and Markham, the now unknown third runner, were on the other side of the room and being tended to. The gate gave a daring flicker before Teyla and Carson emerged, looking like drowned rats. Their luggage was taken from them and they were moved to the side and out of the way.

Reaching the bed, Elizabeth relaxed down, letting the medic lay her back and she looked up to find a plastic ceiling blocking her view of jumper hatch. They were still under confinement, but at least they were home. She took a deep breath, hearing two more sets of feet stagger from the gate and closed her eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

John bounced down the corridor in a great mood. Finally after two weeks of down time, poking and prodding, he had been released from the infirmary. Elizabeth, having never actually contracted the illness, had been released over a week ago, though John had been thankful for the doctors limiting her working hours so she could get some proper rest. His bag of belongings in one hand, John turned down the hallway to their room with a strange sense of being in the wrong place. If anything, their trip to Thule had knocked his sense of placement and belonging off the straight and narrow.

He opened the door almost dancing into the room and spotted Elizabeth, stretched out on the bed with a book in hand. She quirked a brow at him, though he had yet to work out if it was a question about his release or a question for his mood. Either way he gave her a charming smile and tipped the bag up on his side of the bed.

“Miss me?” he asked picking up his things and starting to put them in drawers or wherever he deemed reasonable.

“A little,” Elizabeth said turning back to her book, “I didn’t miss your mess.”

“I’m tidying as I go,” he said picking up the clean clothes he’d been given back and heading for the closet. He purposely left one last item on the bed and took his time putting away the clothes to see if Elizabeth would notice it. It would very soon belong to her after all and there was nothing like letting her find something of interest.

“What’s this?” she asked, making him grin at the way she’d looked at his previous mess to make sure he was actually tidying and not just moving it around. He blanked his face before he turned around and raised a questioning brow.

“Oh I found that in Thule. In the office of one Queen Bethania Wade.” He’d made the ‘Queen’ as pointed as he possibly could. He’d never say it out loud for fear of sounding very corny, but she was a queen in her own right. “Thought you might like it.”

He crossed the room, sitting himself on the edge of the bed and placing a hand on her belly as she studied the statuette. He hadn’t really paid much attention to it when he’d picked it up, but the sleek blue statue reminded him of a tall slim pyramid from on Earth, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember where it was. Giving up on anything connected to the statue, John dropped his eyes to the belly under his hands, still containing his grown and currently moving child he couldn’t help but look it over and taking in the changed shape of Elizabeth. After what had happened the last couple of weeks, he hadn’t really seen a lot of her and now his eyes were taking in every change he could possibly find.

Like the fact that the top she was currently wearing no longer fit properly. A slither of smooth stomach teased him underneath it and he lowered a few fingers to draw them along it. He felt Elizabeth’s eyes move to him, knowing she was reading off his face just what he wanted to do next. He felt her shift, twisting slightly and heard the book and statue being placed on the bedside, as she moved, her top shifted and John smiled as it rode up over her stomach. ‘Five months, that was about right,’ he thought, trying hard to remember her due date through the naughty ideas currently floating around in his head.

“Might as well take that off now,” he said cheekily leaning in to kiss her stomach.

“If I did that every time my t-shirt rode up, I’d walk around topless.”

John’s head and brow came up so fast he felt the muscle at the back of his neck protest with a pang. That thought was entertaining as was the idea that she did the same when her pants rolled down. It hadn’t passed his notice that her current pair was tucked down low.

“Dream on,” she said with a smile.

“Okay,” he said shifting up the bed closer to her and returning his hands to the bump. “But what about just following that rule now?”

He didn’t let her answer, choosing to kiss her instead of listen to a reply. He felt as if a lifetime had passed since he’d last had the chance to kiss her, when really it had only been a couple of weeks, about the time he’d proposed to her and things had gone horribly wrong. He kept the kiss slow and lingering, wanting to show her how much he missed their alone time, but that idea swiftly went out the window when Elizabeth teased her tongue along the roof of his mouth and all the blood in his body rushed to his groin.

She pushed him back and John tried to look hurt for the moment it took her to cross her arms over her body and pull her shirt off. It was then that he got the first idea that she had planned this, that the choice of top had been a deliberate tease. A tease of which was now so far out the window it was on the other side of the planet, she had no bra on and John couldn’t help but lick his lips as he fixed his eyes on her breasts.

“I don’t know if I should be envious of our kids or thankful for creating them.”

Elizabeth gave a short laugh before bringing his attention back up to her face for a kiss. He let his hands slip around to her back and up into her hair as she tucked hers under his shirt, in comparison to her, he was massively over dressed and he quickly pulled his hands back to deprive himself of the shirt before he pressed her back onto the bed. He loved her, he’d gone months without having sex with her before and he’d do it again in a heartbeat, but when she was being so willing and encouraging he couldn’t possibly resist temptation.

Pressing her flat on her back across the bed, John gave her a kiss that in no uncertain terms told her just what she was in for, before he moved down her body, kissing lazily at her neck as he started a slow trail down towards her supple breasts. He quickly replaced the word ‘supple’ in his head with ‘succulent’ as he nipped at the side of her breast and quickly devoured her nipple.

Long slender fingers gripped tightly at his hair and shoulder as a low groan escaped her lips and he hummed his agreement over the tight bud. He didn’t linger too long, knowing just how sensitive and painful they could be, he switched to the other breast, giving it a moment’s attention before starting a trail down over her stomach. He couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers down the sides of her belly as he moved down the bed, he loved how she squirmed when he did it, caught somewhere between ticklish and arousal she made a wonderful sound that shot straight to his cock.

Reaching her pants, John slowly untied the strings at the top and stretched the waist band out before lowering them slowly down over her hips. Not all that surprising, though still very welcomed, Elizabeth wasn’t wearing panties either. He pouted for just a moment at the thought of the lovely pair of pink lace panties she owned before he continued removing her clothes.

He pulled off the bed to drop her pants to the ground, quickly crouched down to remove his boots before, perhaps a little too eagerly undoing his own pants and shoving them to the ground. When he finally trailed his eyes back up her body, she had raised up on her elbows to quirk a brow at him.

“Eager?” she said a little too playfully for his liking.

“I’ve not so much as been able to touch you in weeks,” he pointed out. “And here you are in all your most beautiful clothes...” Elizabeth gave a hearty laugh at that “...teasing the hell out of me,” he finished, his eyes watching as she bit on her lower lip and tipped to the side so she could hook a finger at him in invitation. Crawling up the bed between her legs, John leaned down for a kiss that turned into a groan as Elizabeth’s hand wrapped around his length.

“Eager in all the right places, I see.”

“That’s the effect you have on me on a bad day.”

“Oh? So what does a good day look like?”

“Remember that time I came home, didn’t want to talk to anyone but you, stepped into a private room with you and then out again 15 minutes...”

“10 minutes,” she corrected.

“Alright, 10 minutes late. That’s a good day.”

“Let’s change this to a good day,” she said teasingly stroking his cock.

“Damn,” he whispered, dropping his head to her shoulder and lowering himself so she could place him at just the right spot. He didn’t waste time, teasing her was just not a good thing at the moment and John thrust in a little faster than his usual pace, checking to make sure she was okay before he pulled back and started to get a rhythm going. A few minutes later, his arms began to ache with the effort of holding himself up and he dropped down to his elbows, his stomach brushing tightly against her pregnant one and he felt a sense of dread as his attempt to carry on this way quickly became harder and harder.

“Stop,” Elizabeth breathed, reading the problem off him, he stopped, waiting to know what she had in mind. When she didn’t talk straight away, John sat back, giving a few lazy strokes inside her and teasing his thumb at her clit. She tightened on him and stopped, placing his hand on her belly while he took a few moments to control himself.

“Turn onto your side,” he said after a moment. The baby had kicked softly at his hand and he wanted to feel it again.

He pulled out as she started to move, letting her turn on the bed to rest on the pillows he settled down behind her and drew her leg back over his hip as high as was comfortable for her. He placed a kiss at her neck before he licked a finger and began to tease at her clit again. Nails dug sharply at his side as he teased her and he used the distraction to tuck a hand under her head. Or at least he thought it was a distraction until she reached her other hand up and linked her fingers with his.

“Comfortable?” he asked and she nodded in reply. “Good,” he said, fiddling with the ring she had tucked between his fingers. He pulled his right hand away and guided himself back into her body. Blissful heat and pulsing velvet walls wrapped around him and he tucked his face against her neck as he pressed in as far as he dared. “God you’re amazing,” he hissed into the skin of her shoulder as he drew his hand back up to her stomach. Elizabeth only managed to moan in reply as John picked that moment to start thrusting.

The sensation was too much for him and John gave up on waiting for the baby to move or kick and wrapped his arm across the top of her stomach, under her breasts, before adjusting himself to place a knee on the bed for extra leverage. Elizabeth grunted with the change of angle, let out a long low moan and tightened her fingers in his hip. He was considering talking, asking if there was a chance this was their last time before either the baby or the wedding day when he felt her hand move off his side and brush against him before she tightened on him and moaned as her orgasm hit.

He tried to say something through the feeling, but it was too much and as she relaxed into fluttering muscles John found his words came out as moans as he came inside her.

He dropped back on the pillow, tucking his face back in against her neck and easing himself out of her body before he reminded her that he loved her and tried to fight of the fatigue and failed. It had been a long slow couple of weeks, he hated the slow times after so much excitement. Though he had to admit as he whispered his love again, that he was glad it was over and she was safe.

~~**~~

She followed the girl, playfully pretending to catch her, making the girl feel as though her little legs were faster than they really were. They both giggled, these were the fun moments every mother wanted with her daughter and at the best of times, and playing out in the open like this was far from the thing for a queen to do. But she ignored the guards, ignored the onlookers, she was happy here, her husband sitting a few feet away drawing plans and her daughter with the biggest smile she’d ever seen her with. She wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long, the slight weight of her next child was already playing on her lungs and eventually her council would stop her for a quick “you’re a high class lady” lecture.

Frankly she couldn’t care less who had what level, family was family and even the queen of Avalon deserved the right to play with her beautiful daughter. She followed Bethan around, chasing her though the tall grass until she had to stop for a messenger who’d hurried impatiently up to the party.

“What is it?” she asked instinctively knowing something had gone wrong somewhere.

“There was an accident in the construction of Thule; they are requesting your attendance, my lady.” He gave a short bow and turned to her daughter. “Bethania stay with your father,” she said stealing a glance with her lover and turning to take a quick pace back to the city. She barely glanced at the marker being built in the middle of the garden, its placement had been designed and built to list the rulers of their people and she had barely a passing thought or care for the idea. There were so many better uses for such a marker.

Following the messenger, she turned along the wall of the city and approached the Stargate, standing proud at the edge of the island. A guard there started to dial the gate as soon as he spotted her and she nodded to him before vanishing through the gate with her messenger in tow.

“My lady,” an elderly man said, greeting her with a smile and instantly she let her shoulders sag slightly and her expression turned suspicious.

“It’s been a long time since you called me that, father,” she said. “You got me here under the guise of an emergency, what’s the real reason I was summoned?”

“Well as I no longer have the right to summon you, as you so graciously put it, I had to find a more entertaining method. I know...” he continued, holding up a hand to stall any comment she might be able to throw at him. “I will never grow up, it runs in the family. Come.”

He beckoned her as he turned to cross the room, taking the stairs up into the control room and then out onto the balcony on the other side. She followed him out, feeling the cool air in complete contrast to the temperature on Avalon and smiled at the sight she saw. Only a couple of years ago had she joked about their people always inhabiting worlds mostly covered in water and never building a ship to sail on them. Yet here she stood in one of the most advanced cities they had built yet looking down at a dozen or so sailing ships scattered across the horizon.

“Should you wish to go somewhere and not be in a hurry, you can take a ship of your choice.” Her father always had a flair for simplicity. “They are no faster than the ones we used to make, though they are much more comfortable and will not tip over in a storm.”

“Inertial dampeners on a sea ship is cheating.”

“Yes, but think of the time you’ll save teaching people to hold their stomachs.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “Can I return to my family? I was having a great time with Bethania before you so rudely interrupted.”

Her father bowed his head to her with a cheeky grin and indicated the door back into the new city. There was no one in the room when she stepped back in, even her messenger had vanished, probably to avoid her glare at the deceitful trick he had so daringly played. She smiled and shook off the thought and approached the dialling computer.

Elizabeth woke sharply, the address she’d just dialled fresh in her mind and a pain in her abdomen that rivalled any period pain she’d ever had. She took several deep breaths, trying hard to get rid of the pain quickly and keep the address in her mind. At her side, John turned onto his side and peered up at her.

“You alright?” he asked.

“I know the address to Avalon,” she said though gritted teeth. John sat up quickly, drawing himself up onto his knees at her side. “I think I just went into labour,” she added knowing he’d only ask the question again if she didn’t answer soon.

~~**~~

“Well it’s about time,” John snapped, he was on edge enough as it was and waiting twenty minutes extra for the team to get ready was far from his idea of relaxing.

“Sorry, sir, McKay insisted on copying a few files to bring along,” Lorne said turning to glare at the doctor who shook his head and gave a nonchalant “whatever”. “We’re sure about where we’re going?”

“Yeah, Elizabeth wrote down the address to Avalon as quickly as she could. We’ve already sent a MALP though, looks empty, not even a building in sight.”

“Right,” Lorne said turning to make sure his extended team was ready, the newest edition to the city taking his first trip through the gate, and not only that, it was the first time he’d ever been to another world – Atlantis not included of course. “Let’s get going then,” he said. Then turned to John. “I have money on your baby being born tomorrow morning,” he said and John grinned.

“Then you have more of a chance than I do, I had two days from now,” John said. “I’ll try and stall.”

“Good luck with that,” Harper said bravely speaking up for the first time since he’d been told they were going through the gate. “First times can be anything from a couple of hours to a couple of days, if my sisters are anything to go by.” John quirked a brow, finding interesting that Lorne and Ronon had done the same. “My younger sister had her first baby within three hours; my oldest had a three day labour, pain free for most of it. Though she was sick as a dog for the whole thing.”

“Lovely,” John said sarcastically. “I’ll be sure to tell Elizabeth that after it’s over.”

“Good idea, sir,” Harper said.

“Alright,” Lorne said and reached out to pat Harper on the shoulder. “Let’s see what Avalon has to offer in way of venue and scenery.”

John smirked at Lorne as he took point with Hadly at his side. He watched, impatiently as Harper, Jones, Ronon and Rodney followed and then nodded up at the control room to Chuck, turned and ran for the infirmary.

~~**~~

They’d only been here for an hour and already Ronon was bored, and by the looks of it, so was McKay. There was nothing here in the way of technology, just a massive garden, a few ruins of old buildings and a stump wall that outlined the place a city used to stand. A large city at that.

Other than that, they’d only found one thing of interest. The pyramid that stood in the middle of the garden, a few feet from the gate they had spotted it, tall and covered in a pale blue stone that reminded him of the ocean at the shallow point. Though this was littered with black markings, text Lorne had pointed out and Harper had squinted closely at it looking just as confused as he felt.

“What does it say?” Ronon asked at last, growing tired of the obvious.

“They’re names,” Jones said before McKay could even open his mouth.

Jones moved around to the next side and looked up the side of the obelisk; he muttered something as he read down, stopping half way down the side he quirked a brow and curiously Ronon moved around as Jones moved to the side facing the city. Jones’ brow quirk was evident, the last side of the structure was only half covered in text, stopping abruptly, as though there hadn’t been enough time to finish it.

“Here are the honoured men, women and children of Avalon, lives taken harshly and without meaning by Jenna’s plague. She was young, her soul sweet and innocent and she will be sorely missed by the survivors. Our hearts hope that the Wade family continues.” Jones read. “The first name on the list is bolder than the others.” Silence fell and Harper, looking very confused quietly moved around to join Jones.

“Who’s the first name?” he asked in a whisper.

“Jenna Wade-Shand,” Lorne said instinctively knowing the answer. Daughter to Bethania Wade and Josiah Shand – who we learned a couple of months ago had their souls placed into our lovely leaders.”

Harper looked confused back at Jones and Ronon almost snorted in laughter. It wasn’t an easy thing to grasp, learning that reincarnation was actually possible and in use by the ancients.

“Doctor Elizabeth Weir is the reincarnation of Bethania Wade, the queen of Avalon, Thule and Atlantis before she starved herself to death.” Hadly offered. “She’d made the decision to leave over three hundred people to die in Thule, including her husband, Josiah Shand – now reincarnated to Colonel John Sheppard, and their twin boys, whose names I can’t remember.”

“Tiam was one of them,” Lorne said as Jones started to look down the list of names. He snapped his fingers impatiently trying to remember the other.

“Thuran,” Ronon offered.

“Fascinating,” Rodney said turning his back to the shrine and looking out over the landscape. “If we’re finished with the trip down memory lane, can we go, there’s nothing here.”

“None of them are on here,” Jones said stalling Lorne’s reply to McKay, something he had no doubt would have led to argument. “Josiah and the boys, they’re not listed.”

“We can go now,” Lorne said turning away and heading for the gate.

“Just like that?” Rodney said.

“Yeah,” Lorne said. “Just like that. I don’t plan on listening to you gripe about there being nothing of interest here, when that,” he swung around and stopped sharply pointing at the structure, “is important to Doctor Weir and Colonel Sheppard, something you might understand a little about if you’d actually paid attention while we were trapped there struggling for our lives.” Rodney was completely stunned for a few seconds before Lorne continued. “We’re going back to find out if someone can add the rest of the names to the list, including Peters.”

Ronon was a little shocked that Rodney didn’t point out the obvious mistakes in that reasoning, all of which involved Peters who hadn’t died of the virus and was anything but an ancient. He didn’t posses the gene, and even the gene therapy had failed on him. But he understood why. Not to mention he knew, just as Jones, Hadly and Lorne knew that Elizabeth would want the same thing. The people they had left behind when they destroyed the city deserved to be remembered on that obelisk and that included Peters.

Thankfully, Rodney didn’t say a word on the way back, choosing to mutter under his breath a list of things he needed to do, which Ronon couldn’t help smirking at when he added lunch and dinner to the list. The man had his priorities, no one else would ever agree with them, but at least he knew what he wanted and needed to do.

The trip back, silent and contemplative took two hours and when they stepped back into Atlantis they found an atmosphere completely different to the one they’d just left at the obelisk. Teyla came down the stairs to greet them, her smile stretching from ear to ear and before she’d even reached the bottom of the stairs Ronon knew there was one more person in the city. Everyone else seemed to have the same thinking, and Rodney bounced excitedly waiting for Teyla to say something. But when she stopped, she just smiled at them.

“Well?” Ronon said.

“Baby girl,” Teyla announced. “Eight pounds, two ounces, born about an hour ago.”

“Do they have a name?” Hadly asked, checking his watch.

“No,” Teyla said. “Though John had suggested calling her Wade as I left the room.”

“That’s more of a boy’s name,” Lorne said turning away from the group and heading for the armoury.

~~**~~

“Charlotte?” Elizabeth offered then instantly shook her head. Nothing seemed to fit, nothing seemed right and she laughed shortly at the idea of her mother in the same situation, finally deciding on ‘Elizabeth’ as the closest there was to perfect. She was sitting up in the bed, leaning back against John’s chest as he perched on the bed behind her. Their baby girl in her arms, though his hand never left her, always in contact, always brushing his thumb over her delicate skin. He’d been quiet for some time now, deep in contemplation she suspected, though she could probably guess that he wasn’t thinking of names.

Over the duration of her pregnancy, since returning from Thule, they had only managed to agree on one thing. They wouldn’t name their child Bethan, Josiah, Jenna, Thuran or Tiam. It seemed like bad luck, and now, holding a baby girl in her arms, it seemed wrong and almost a temptation to fate to call her Jenna.

“Imogen,” John said. “I had a sister once, for about half an hour,” he added, brushing his fingers along the baby’s cheek. “They named her Imogen.”

“Imogen,” Elizabeth repeated, looking down her daughter. It sounded right.

“I never did like the name,” he said. “Up until about three hours ago,” he added with a sly grin as he turned to look at her.

“I like it,” Elizabeth said. “It sounds great to me. Then again, so does sleep right now.” She gave a small laugh and looked down at the baby. “I just don’t want to put her down. Imogen Weir-Sheppard.”

“The second,” John added teasingly. He got up and walked over to the crib Carson had set up for them and wheeled it back over to Elizabeth. “The first princess of Atlantis,” he said with a grin as Elizabeth turned and ever so carefully placed the baby inside it.

“Well if she’s the princess,” Elizabeth said shifting down the bed. “Then the queen needs sleep.”

John grinned. “In which case, the king will watch over his pretty ladies.” Elizabeth chuckled. “Wonder who won the pool,” he said just as Elizabeth drifted towards dream.

“I think it was Ronon,” she said. “I was looking at the list a few days ago.”

“Good for him,” John said. “He can buy the first round of drinks.”

“If only we had a bar in the city,” Elizabeth muttered as she finally drifted off to sleep.

~~**~~

 **Three Months Later**

The Jumper left the gate with Elizabeth in the passenger seat, Imogen in her arms, and Teyla right behind her. All their things had been brought here earlier in the day and for the next five hours it was just the girls, the guards and the science team that were finishing up with the obelisk in the middle of the garden. Major Lorne had the pilot’s seat and he guided the Jumper towards their little camp, crossing the hour long walk in a matter of minutes to set down next to her tent.

She knew it was cliché, being married in the garden of Avalon, but as she stepped out of the Jumper and looked around, she knew she couldn’t care less. The place was beautiful, and after today, they would be setting it up as a beta site and respite. Who wouldn’t want to vacation here? The garden, she had been told, had been over grown and somewhat wild when they first arrived, but three weeks of every botanist and anyone who wanted to volunteer in their spare time had made this place absolutely beautiful.

Turning away from the Jumper and her tent, Elizabeth moved over to the obelisk just as the scientist finished clearing up after engraving the last of the text. He nodded to her as she read down the list of names that had been added, Josiah and the boys had been left until the very end, and just before them was Lieutenant Lucas Peters. Wondering about the text at the very bottom, Elizabeth crouched down; Imogen carefully balanced in her arms as she read:

 _The end of an old illness should always mean a fresh start for a new life. For us, the survivors of Thule, our hopes lie with Imogen Weir-Sheppard._

She didn’t need to ask, she knew only too well that that message had been written by Lorne and agreed on by everyone else who’d been in that outpost. It was touching, heartfelt and above all it marked what they hoped was the end to the suffering from all those years ago. She would never forget what happened and chances were when Imogen reached 10, she’d start having her checked regularly, until she, at the very least, reached 15. It would never matter that Carson and Jennifer had confirmed the virus was out of their systems, baby included, she’d always be afraid of living through what Bethan had suffered.

Turning away, she crossed the garden and entered the tent. Teyla was already inside, sorting through their things. Elizabeth lay her daughter down in the space that had been set up and turned ready to prepare herself for her wedding and the start of something fresh.


End file.
